Finance committee  There are two challenges we have to address. The first is this: We have to change our assessment system. When a newcomer comes to Canada, they have to not only provide credentials but also go through the same assessment system, including...whether or not English is their first language.

Finance committee  My impression of the effects on provinces of the federal budget and the commitments is, number one, that people are rethinking the way they currently regulate and license doctors. The Right to Care Act in Ontario, to a great degree, was for compliance with the bilateral agreements that they knew were coming.

Finance committee  The first part of that is a real focus on patients having access to their own health data. We have custodial data systems where we care more about whether or not the custodian of the data—not the person who actually owns and uses the data—has access to information in the way that they actually utilize care.

Finance committee  I think Canadians on average grossly overestimate how much actually gets shared with the federal government and across provinces. Depersonalized data is extremely important to identify where needs are and then to have people migrate toward where those needs are. One of the things we saw in mid-pandemic waves, when there were huge spikes in acuity early in places like Quebec and Ontario, was the migration of providers who had skill sets that were needed in those communities, because there was good communication and people actually went to places where they were needed.

Finance committee  In regard to artificial intelligence, we're developing a position on that. I think there are two parts to AI that will be useful. There's the helpful part where it helps us to categorize and streamline patients' access to care. There's the unhelpful part where you have a deep fake like those Tom Cruise videos that you see, where you have someone telling someone to do something that's unhealthy for themselves.

Finance committee  I do believe we're in a place that, in five or 10 years, will be somewhere better. It's the inevitable conclusion that when you have persons around the table, regardless of their ideologies, focused on the same things, problems get solved, especially as the crisis gets worse. We will not have a population that survives if we don't deal today with health care, food security or any of these other problems.

Finance committee  That's an excellent question. I personally feel that our biggest danger with this largest nominal investment since 2003-04 is going back to solving the problems that were there yesterday when, in reality, they're very different today. What's the number one problem in the health care system?

Finance committee  That's an excellent question. The way that I answer it is twofold. First, if we truly want equity in health care, we have to have public financing at its core. Studies have been done across the world: If you do not have significant public financing, even in hybrid systems, equity of access to care suffers.

Finance committee  Yes, absolutely. I think the budget includes some of those front-end conditions. With the bilateral funding, there is the requirement for recognition of credentials. That takes us a step closer to pan-Canadian licensure, which is a necessary step to starting to resolve some of these problems.

Finance committee  I might begin and I'll answer in English. I think it's interesting this juxtaposition that we have in the social determinants of health. You have food banks and you talk about health care. I hope members appreciate that the driving factors for unemployability are deeply tied to medical access, and the ability to have food security is deeply tied to the demands that happen on health care.

Finance committee  Tanshi, boozhoo and good evening, Chair and committee members. I am pleased to join you here in Ottawa on the unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Anishinabe Algonquin nation. I'm Dr. Alika Lafontaine, a Métis anaesthesiologist working in Grande Prairie, Alberta, in northern rural Alberta.