Health committee  Absolutely, that would be hugely helpful. I think that's one important role that the federal government can play in this area. We know people can cross borders in Canada quite easily, and we know that drug seeking happens across borders as well, so being able to access that data

Health committee  I know that there are Canadian physicians who are doing that, who are having multiple consultations and meetings at different points in time. That also has its challenges. For someone with severe acute pain who genuinely needs pain medications, asking them to come in for an appo

Health committee  I can't speak to specific statistics around that, but clearly this is a concern across Canada. The issue of patients selling prescription drugs is not unique to one jurisdiction. We've seen this for years. It speaks to some of the challenges that I was alluding to before at the i

Health committee  There are a number of aspects, particularly the number of hoops that communities need to jump through and the barriers that are put in place in terms of the letters of support and a number of the other procedures that people need to go through. I think we all recognize that input

Health committee  Those are extremely important issues for a physician. We've been working very closely with the regulatory colleges and with our educational colleges as well. As you know, there are a number of medical bodies in Canada that have different responsibilities for different areas. We

Health committee  Clearly, there's more to be done, right? We as a profession have to own that, and we are owning that. We're saying that we need to do a better job. As in all of these discussions, it's much more complex on the front lines if you have a health care practitioner or a primary care

Health committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm Dr. Jeff Blackmer, the vice-president of medical professionalism for the Canadian Medical Association. On behalf of the CMA, I would first like to commend the committee for initiating this emergency study of the public health crisis in Canada. As the na

Justice committee  That's a very important question. I would point out that when we've done surveys of the membership in the CMA, somewhere around 30% of physicians have said that if this becomes legal they would be willing to participate. That may sound, on the face of it, low; it's actually not.

Justice committee  There's actually a system in Alberta, at the current point in time, that the Alberta government has been working on where physicians can register with a central registry and say they are willing to participate. Patients, or a health care provider, can call that number and find ou

Justice committee  I would say, as a general principle, additional clarity would be welcome. I would also say that given the type of association we are, it's very difficult for Dr. Forbes and me to pretend to represent 80,000 members when we haven't had that discussion internally. Certainly the add

Justice committee  I'm not a lawyer, but having spoken to a lot of lawyers about this, I've received the interpretation that this would not be possible. If the committee feels otherwise and there is a possibility otherwise, we would support that possibility, certainly.

Justice committee  I think it's important to recognize that these are comments that have been made in front of the committee that we haven't had a chance to vet internally or with our membership. We feel the bill as it stands is sufficient. We certainly respect the opinion of our colleagues within

Justice committee  They have an important voice.

Justice committee  I think it's important to recognize that although we are both medical organizations, we come at this bill with slightly different perspectives and slightly different filters in terms of the way we interpret some of this. I have had a chance to read Dr. Stern's comments. What I w

Justice committee  I would say probably the best analogy is therapeutic abortion. This is a matter over which the medical profession has certainly struggled collectively and individually. There's often a question around conscience rights and a right to objection and whether or not physicians may ha