Health committee  Yes, there are tremendous gaps in education for women but also for family physicians as well. That's in part due to misinformation and disinformation that is being spread. We are doing our best to dispel that information, but a lot of it really comes from the task force. That's where everything stems from.

Health committee  First of all, I'd like to say that women with dense breasts are not of average risk, and the task force has lumped them in with women with average risk. Then they are saying that there is no evidence to support supplemental screening, and we know that there is 50 years of evidence—please don't ask me to list that—and we have that evidence, and we can certainly forward that to you as well.

Health committee  It impacts it significantly. We look at provinces. Dense Breasts Canada compares all of the provinces in terms of optimal breast cancer practices. We looked at five different key practices. You have a province like Quebec that scores zero out of five. Then you have a province like Nova Scotia that scores five.

Health committee  I am Jennie Dale. I am a breast cancer patient. In 2016, I co-founded Dense Breasts Canada, a non-profit that raises awareness and advocates for optimal breast cancer screening. I've spoken with hundreds of breast cancer patients across Canada, and it's an honour to be here tonight to represent them.

Health committee  A commitment was made during an election campaign that the government would address better guidelines, and after the election, it did not address the guidelines. It was not until this past June that the commitment was fulfilled—and it was fulfilled.