Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It's a pleasure to be before this committee yet again, and in this instance to take questions relating to the supplementary estimates (A).
Maybe, if I could, Mr. Chairman, just before we begin, I'd like to give a bit of an update on where we are, as we're going through a very challenging time for the world, frankly, in dealing with health. We know that coming out of the pandemic, the health system was under enormous strain, with people burning out, long wait times and significant human resource challenges that were felt here and around the world.
Rising to meet those challenges is an exceptionally important priority for this government, working in collaboration with provinces and territories, and it was in your home province, Mr. Chairman, nearly a year ago, that we had the opportunity to meet with all health ministers in a spirit of co-operation and to lay out an agenda for how we might work together, in the aftermath of the pandemic, on the challenges facing our health system.
In the time that has followed, we have been able to see 26 agreements signed, with all provinces and all territories, dealing with health workforce issues, dealing with aging with dignity, dealing with mental health and many other aspects of our health system, and there has been continued progress on pharmacare and dental care. On dental care, I can say in this moment that in just the opening six weeks, we saw 200,000 seniors receive care across the country.
I'd be happy to go into greater detail, but we already have over 40% of providers participating. July 8 will be an important date, because that will be the point at which providers will be able to participate on a one-off basis. They will not be required to sign up in advance. We've also just seen the passage in the House of Commons—and I want to thank the health critics for the NDP, both current and past, Don Davies and Peter Julian, for working at cross-purposes and finding common ground on pharmacare. I've been having very productive conversations with all provinces and territories, and I'm very anxious to begin that work, to build upon their jurisdiction and to work with them collaboratively.
We must respect provincial and territorial jurisdictions. That's vital. For example, my discussions with Minister Dubé make it clear that we can improve the overall quality of the health care system by embracing a spirit of co‑operation on both sides.
Some really important things have to be done on things such as drugs for rare diseases. We're now able to move forward, and I hope that imminently we will be able to see progress on those.
You can see that there are dollars in the supplementary estimates for personal support workers. It's absolutely critical that we work collaboratively with provinces and territories to make sure those extraordinary individuals, who were so critical during the pandemic and who are critical today in our health system, are paid a fair wage and that we as the federal government do our part in that process.
As well, there's health data legislation. That data legislation will be coming before this committee. I look forward to the conversation that will happen on that. Having our systems interconnected and recognizing that data saves lives are absolutely critical things to taking blindfolds off our health care providers, making sure the data is used to its greatest effect to save lives and helping make our health system work efficiently. It's totally unacceptable that we still see fax machines and that physicians have to fill out forms four or five times. We have to get to the bottom of that.
I hope to see the same spirit I've seen with provincial and territorial colleagues, whereby we recognize that health is bigger than partisanship and that we have to find ways to talk about solutions, and I would invite members to share their ideas. We have a huge number of seniors, for example, who don't have dental care but who are going to get it.
For anyone who is against that, I would ask what they think the alternative is. If you're against somebody getting diabetes medication or contraceptives, what do you say to somebody who needs diabetes medication or needs contraceptives? What's your solution?
Similarly, with our health workforce issues, we've been able to make extraordinary progress, Mr. Chairman. Working collaboratively we have seen, for example, the service standard for foreign credential recognition in Charlottetown go from 90 days, or processes with the College of Physicians and Surgeons go from many, many, many months to being reduced and contracted to a matter of days.
I look forward to a solutions-based conversation where we can debate the very challenging global circumstance that we're in and how Canada can lead the way with a world-class health care system.
That concludes my opening remarks.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I'm happy to take questions.
