Health committee  I would just like to ask if there is any national approach to education, because part of the equation here is demand. The other part of it is supply. When we have large numbers of people seeking to increase health care more and more, there are many things that they can do as individuals through the education system.

Health committee  Self-care, yes. Again, I understand that health is provincial, but is there any national plan for something like that?

Health committee  Very briefly, it appears in the modern era in which we find ourselves that you cannot talk people numbers in human resources alone. You must talk along with IT and new communications. To have human resource groups here but not have, somehow, an interface with a group for Internet technology is just old.

Health committee  Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I think we tend to focus on the IMGs, the international medical graduates, as being a solution to our physician and health resource problems here. They are a small part of that solution. Certainly I can understand why we're focused on them, because it's certainly going to help in the short term.

Health committee  Yes. Regarding your question about mobility and licensing, one of the issues we found is that doctors who are willing to go to remote areas—even for six months or several months at a time—to do locum work are unable to get licensed in the province they're needed in. So the concern may be less about doctors moving to wealthier provinces.

Health committee  Thank you very much, and good afternoon. When I began practising medicine two decades ago, there was concern about a physician surplus in Ontario and Canada. The boomer generation was predicted to be the healthiest of all previous generations, and the need for physician services was expected to drop.