Health committee  We received $100 million from the federal government. When we went to market to look at the specifications, the bill was something like $300 million. We obviously couldn't afford the $300 million, so we had to sit the country down and say we have to make some concessions somewher

Health committee  Madam Chair, this was part of the $500 million, where we needed to accelerate the medical record at the community level. So far the heavy lifting has been done by the provinces, but it's moving up too slowly. We are really at the back of the bus when it comes to the rest of the w

Health committee  The one part of the country we're struggling with is Nunavut. There certainly have been commitments that the broadband will be extended up to Nunavut by the time we're ready to roll out the systems. In Iqaluit, it's fine; we can get the systems there. But to get them down into th

Health committee  As I've said before, when you look at the six elements that we're talking about, it's building out those six elements. Once we've done that, it is a matter of access and authority to access those files. Frankly, at the end of the day we want Canadians to have access to their own

Health committee  I have to tell you that one of the great successes, I believe, of an Infoway, which is no more than an instrument from a national perspective to bring the provinces together, has been aspects of commonality. Whether it is the architectural design adopted by the provinces, which i

Health committee  An electronic medical record is typically a record that is at a provider's location. Given that we all go to see our GPs, we want to build electronic medical records whereby a vast majority of your records will be there. Having said that, as individuals we seek services at times

Health committee  I tried to point out some of the successes. I pointed out one success in British Columbia where, with a project like PharmaNet, pharmacists will have access to all dispensed prescriptions. They're picking up something like 2.5 million adverse events that could occur and are chang

Health committee  I wouldn't say that they got a lot more than their per capita share; they've just completed their project. I'll take one second to explain what we mean by this, because there's some confusion. There are six fundamental elements that make up an electronic health record. There i

Health committee  Madam Chair, thank you for that question. I've been working at the national level now, having come from a province, for the last 15 to 20 years. I've never seen the kind of collaboration that is taking place between the federal government and the jurisdictions as I've seen aroun

Health committee  Thank you. The goals, first, are a call to action. They are premised on the goals put forward by the provinces and the territories. As Madam Fraser has said, at Infoway we can only move as quickly as the provinces and territories move, so based on the plans put forward, we felt

Health committee  Certainly from an administrative perspective we do, and at this stage also from a financial perspective. Again, if the provinces saw that we would incent use with the building of electronic medical records, etc., it would incent the provinces to move faster, because they'll be pu

Health committee  As part of our submission, we brought forward a report that was done by the Conference Board of Canada, which says for every $100 million, 1,500 knowledge worker jobs are created in this country; that for every dollar spent, the GDP is increased by $1.34. These are knowledge work

Health committee  Bonjour. Let me give my response in two parts. I said this is very similar to building a house. You have to have the house built and available and then you can sell it and it can be used. So in terms of having the house available and the systems for 50% available, the answer i

Health committee  The answer to that would be no. In the federal government, part of the model of Infoway is that for every dollar the federal government invests, we leverage that dollar with a provincial dollar; if $1.2 billion is invested by the federal government, then rest assured that about $

Health committee  Madam Chair, I should say that the specific reasons are still unclear. Having said that, in the government's third report on the economy to Canadians, the $500 million was marked with an asterisk, which basically indicated “due diligence”. To be perfectly honest, given some of