SCYR Committee Meeting

SUB-COMMITTEE ON CHILDREN AND YOUTH AT RISK OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT AND THE STATUS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

SOUS-COMITÉ SUR LES ENFANTS ET JEUNES À RISQUE DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DES RESOURCES HUMAINES ET DE LA CONDITION DES PERSONNES HANDICAPÉES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, June 1, 1999

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[English]

The Chairman (Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.)): Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to bring the meeting to order because we have precious little time.

I would remind everybody, first of all, that although this is technically a meeting of the Subcommittee on Children and Youth at Risk—of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities—it's also, for all practical purposes, a joint meeting of two subcommittees, because Dr. Carolyn Bennett chairs the Subcommittee on the Status of Persons with Disabilities. On behalf of the small but quality representation from both committees, we're delighted to welcome you.

We beg your forgiveness because of the changing of the scheduling, owing to parliamentary votes. We think the bell will start to bong at about 5.15 p.m., so we don't want to waste precious time.

We want to get right into it by first welcoming you. We're delighted you're here. We're delighted you're preparing for the conference, which I assume one or two of you may talk about, that is coming up in the millennium.

We look forward to meeting with you informally after the vote in room 601, and we invite everyone who is with us at the back of the hall to join us as well, so that if we can't complete our formal discussion, we can certainly pursue our informal discussions.

I have a list that begins with Dr. Dines. May I ask you to quarterback this operation? Or who's going to start?

Mr. Sayeed, go ahead.

Mr. Raffath Sayeed (Member, International Steering Committee, Canadian Association for Community Living): Thank you, Mr. Godfrey and Dr. Bennett. It gives me great pleasure to present before you. It might be presumptuous on my part to say maybe you're creating history by getting two committees meeting together, but maybe not.

First, to introduce myself, my name is Raffath Sayeed. I'm the president of CACL and a family practitioner for the last 24 years in a small community in western Canada, Lloydminster. I started in the field of disability as a volunteer, a community advocate. About five years later I was blessed with a son who challenged me to broaden my horizons, and ten years later another one. I have four sons. Of course, they challenge us, as children do, to broaden our horizons, and it continues.

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I'm so pleased to be able to announce to you today the commitment of the Government of Canada to support the Sixth International Congress on Serving Children with Disabilities in the Community, in October 2000, in Edmonton, Alberta.

In this regard, I would like to acknowledge support from Human Resources Development Canada, particularly the office of disability issues, Health Canada, and at present we are also working with the Department of Foreign Affairs, CIDA, and the Government of Alberta has also indicated their interest and support. So things are moving right along.

With me is Mr. George Dines and his colleagues from the U.S.A., who were instrumental in starting the first international congress in 1992. Next to George is Zuhy Sayeed, who is kind of related to me. She is a member of the international steering committee and a chair of the international committee of CACL, and also the president of the Alberta Association for Community Living. That's where we get our Alberta connection and a desire to go to Alberta. She is special adviser on children's issues to Inclusion International, and is also acting as liaison to UNICEF on behalf of Inclusion International. She will address the impact of the international congress in Canada on children's issues in Canada.

With that introduction, I would ask George to lead off.

Mr. George B. Dines (International Health Affairs, Associate Administrator, Health Resources and Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services): Thank you very much. It is indeed a pleasure to be with you this afternoon. I'm delighted to bring greetings from Secretary Donna Shalala, the Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services.

With me this afternoon are two of my colleagues with whom I have shared many hours. First is Dr. Merle McPherson, who is the director of the division of services for children with special health needs within our health resources and services administration. Next to Dr. McPherson is Dr. Phyllis Magrab, who is the director of the Child Development Center, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

What we will do, and not necessarily in the order I have introduced them, is try to give you a very brief overview of the background of our international congresses, and also share with you some of our insights as to how Canada may perhaps benefit from some of the experiences we have had.

At this time, I would like Dr. McPherson to give us a background statement regarding the initiation of our congress.

Dr. Merle McPherson (Director, Division of Services for Children, Health Resources and Services Administration, Maternal and Child Health Bureau): I'm Merle McPherson. As George says, I work with the maternal and child health programs and have responsibility for children with disability and chronic illness.

I want to say it's a pleasure to speak to these two committees, because I spend most of my time at home, talking to the child constituencies to persuade them to include children with disabilities and then talking to the adult disability constituency to include children. It's nice to see it come together.

The piece I'm going to talk about today was just my own involvement with the international work we did, and it really grew out of the time that the changes occurred in Eastern and Central Europe. At that time they did a survey of our public health programs to ask what we thought some of the issues were over there and what we might offer to be helpful. So we suggested that we go in with some of our disability programs.

I and my colleagues have been very involved in the United States, in terms of actually rewriting our own maternal and child health legislation to talk about facilitating the development of services that were family centred and coordinated, and that's actually in our legislation at this point.

So we suggested we take that model into Central and Eastern Europe, and what we ended up doing, through some research and technology funds that were international, was going into Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia and actually working at the community level. As you know, there were horror stories that came out of that part of the country around children being in institutions and the terrible things that had happened to them.

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So we really wanted to help them learn how to take care of children within homes and communities and schools. It was really through that work that we began the international congresses. The first ones were very much focused on using the model, learning how to do it, writing the research and the reports, and working with those countries. By the time we came to the fourth congress, it was obvious that there were models that could be disseminated to other countries, and there were obviously a lot of other countries that knew as much or more than we did and wanted to participate in the congresses. So the last two international congresses we have held have been much broader and have included countries from the Americas, from Western Europe, as well as Central and Eastern Europe. Actually in our last congress all the continents and 40 countries participated.

Canada has been one of those exciting partners with us over that time and really has made a major contribution. It is represented on our steering committee now. It's an international steering committee that has representatives from World Health, PAHO, UNICEF, those kinds of organizations, as well as our own governmental agencies.

So by the time the fifth congress was held in the United States, we said, and our partners agreed with us, that it was time to move on and that some other country should do it. So we were very excited when Canada, our neighbour, was the one that suggested they would do the sixth congress. We are looking forward to working with them on that.

I can answer any questions later on, but I think I will leave it at that for now.

Ms. Phyllis R. Magrab (Child Development Center, Center for Child Health and Mental Health Policy, Georgetown University): I'm at Georgetown University, not with the government. Merle and I have worked together very closely on many projects for many years, and it seems like good ideas converge at similar times. I had the personal fortune to be personally connected to the former ambassadors' wives of both Hungary and what was then Czechoslovakia, who were exceedingly concerned, as the governments changed, with what would really happen to services to children because of the decentralization that was occurring. So many of those services came down as very centralized, governmental-driven and -supported activities. They spoke with me, because they knew these were interests of mine, and asked “Is there something you would be interested in doing in working with us around that?” That's how Merle and I continue to connect around that.

What I think was very interesting in my early experience, which led to this congress, is that when we came into those countries, what they believed would be the measures of their success would be child outcomes. If in fact these children were fixed or were better, then the programs would be a success and the changes would be a success. Through consultation and work and international understanding, they really grew to understand and embrace the idea that it is really family outcome and community outcome that we're talking about. It's not a fixing situation. This is a support-generating kind of situation.

Those two issues became very important issues for them, and we saw it as an exchange, and it was a real reciprocal exchange. We learned as much from those countries as they learned from us in terms of what children's needs and families' needs are. The notion of taking this congress and turning it into something that was more globally available I think became sort of our intent and interest, and that was how the expansion of the congress began to occur, using those kinds of themes as a basis.

It should be said that one of our early partners, which is another organization I've had a chance to work with a lot, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, were very interested in this issue because they're very concerned with the notion of social exclusion. It's a very French concept; that there are certain groups of people by virtue of poverty, disability, and ethnicity who will ultimately be excluded from the workplace and will be excluded from all the other kinds of resources that are routinely available. This congress became very interesting to them. And you should be very proud, because when they recommended their first set of potential planners for the larger congress, one of the first persons to come to mind was a Canadian, and his name is Gordon Porter. He has done a lot of wonderful work in this country.

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So you were right there at the very ground floor of thinking about this expansion, because of the kinds of philosophies and programs and very strong community interest that this country, as I understand it, has always had.

I thank you for having me here today, and I'm happy to answer any questions as we move along.

Mr. George Dines: Thank you.

I'd like to speak from a government perspective. From the very initial stages of the conference development, we've had the full support of the secretaries of our Department of Health and Human Services. They not only have indicated their support, but they have participated in most of the congresses we've had.

In addition to that, we've been able to bring on board other departments of the U.S. government, the Department of Education, the social security administration, our National Institutes of Health child development institute, USAID, which is the technical assistance agency in the United States, and others. Together we have been able to effect a partnering of both federal and international organizations, which has led to the support of the conference by many-faceted organizations, of which Merle McPherson mentioned a few. But I would also include the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank as well as UNICEF and UNESCO.

So as you can see, we've brought together a lot of partners to have what we could consider to be a multilateral type of assemblage of personalities. We are looking forward quite anxiously to what you're able to do here, and we pledge our support in any way we possibly can toward the success of your congress.

Thank you. Zuhy.

Ms. Zuhy Sayeed (Member, International Steering Committee, Canadian Association for Community Living): Thank you.

It's with great excitement that we are all here today. I think I can convey to you the excitement of not only the Canadian Association for Community Living, but certainly the international steering committee with whom we've had many discussions about the congress coming to Canada and how we could all play a role in ensuring that children with disabilities would grow up to be contributing citizens in all communities of the world.

I think in order to be able to talk about the impact of what a congress like this can have on the children of Canada, and certainly the children of the world, as I think Raffath has already referred to, there is the fact that two very critical issues were coming together just in the meeting today. One would be the issue of people with disabilities, and the issues of children. I wouldn't be presumptuous to draw to our attention that in much of the work the Canadian association has done—and certainly you will all be familiar with that as well—as we talk about children and adults with disabilities, certainly we need to be reminded ourselves to be able to put that on the agenda and to ensure that their issues get met in the kinds of ways that we in this country would like to deal with people in a human rights framework.

So it is with that excitement, in light of the national children's agenda being released, in light of the fact that the Canadian association and all of its counterparts across the country would like to work very proactively with governments and departments and yourselves as members, in order to ensure that the issues of children with disabilities are dealt with in such an agenda, that provincial initiatives have very much placed children on the priority list. Each province—and certainly I can speak for Alberta—is in the process of not only developing but implementing children's initiatives that will speak to the national children's agenda.

So we see an opportunity to be able to link federal and provincial initiatives. We see an opportunity to link intergovernmental departments in being able to bring the issues of kids and families with disabilities to light, and to an extremely large exciting kind of light that we're proposing and that we have commitment for. We also see an opportunity to be able to create some incredible partnerships in this country and internationally. We certainly know from our experiences in the past congresses that departments of government, particularly in the United States, as we've talked about so many times, have come together along with community, educators, universities, and other organizations and associations to able to create that vision for children and for families that is so important for the future of countries all over the world.

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We do have with us—and we will have it translated and distributed later, unless any of you would like to ask for it later when we have a few minutes—the Agenda for Action, which was developed at the 1994 congress, which really speaks to the vision and the leadership that we know Canada can provide in being able to host this congress.

Internationally, as we get closer to the anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, many governments and many countries have put the issues of children on their priority list. Right now there is a working group that is actually gathering evidence as a subcommittee to the committee that is in charge of the Convention on the Rights of the Child through the UN Human Rights Commission. Evidence is being gathered in order to be able to present to the Children's Summit in the year 2001 the impact the Convention on the Rights of the Child has on children with disabilities and their families.

So we see the opportunity to link with the new United Nations International Year for the Culture of Peace. We see this as being able to promote the inclusion of children with a disability in broader international activities. We see elements that will contribute to justice, equality, and the promotion of democracy and democratization.

There are three or four issues that really came to mind as we started to develop our proposals for this congress. I'll go over very briefly—and we can talk about it later—some of the issues that came to our mind, and they're issues that you would be familiar with in your capacity as the two committees. One would be education. In order to be able to promote citizenship and learning for all children, education, particularly inclusive education, plays a large role. In order to be able to continue to encourage the shift in thinking that Dr. Magrab mentioned, from the traditional “fix the child” kinds of methods to looking at civil society and looking at the environment that children live in, the issue of developing community capacity becomes extremely important in how to deal with, and welcome and nurture, families and children with disabilities.

Another issue is how our health and community-based services can really support inclusion. We have great discussions on the effects of fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effect, and children with complex medical needs. Those are some of the first few children who unfortunately fall through the cracks in many countries.

These were just some of the issues we pulled together, and we'll use them as our suggestion towards the themes of this congress. Any input and discussion we can have with all of you as you have explored your fields and your portfolios will be very helpful in order for us to not only meet the needs of children in Canada, but to certainly promote Canada's leadership internationally to be able to bring this together.

Thank you.

The Chairman: May I make a suggestion to members, and of course if they shoot me down then we'll do something else. Because we're under the gun of this vote, might it be possible for members to put points or questions, and rather than having that kind of dialogue we would normally hope to have, at least to ask the guests to accumulate the points and then respond after doing a group. Would that be acceptable to people? Otherwise I fear we may not be able to get the questions out.

What I would like to do would be to take a first grouping of three points or questions from this side, and if anyone wishes to pass, that's okay too, because we only have about 20 minutes.

Eric, do you have a question or a point you'd like to make? Remember that we also have the opportunity of the social get-together at 6 p.m. in room 601 to which you're invited after the vote.

Mr. Eric Lowther (Calgary Centre, Ref.): Are you suggesting then that we put out a number of questions and then they would address them all?

The Chairman: Rather than do it in our traditional fashion...

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Mr. Eric Lowther: I think that's a great idea. I'm just wondering, if I put out a few, then there would be other questions or...

The Chairman: Oh, sure. What we'll do is put some questions on the table. I'll take a group of two or three, and then we'll move on and get some answers, and then move on to the next group.

Mr. Eric Lowther: I think that's a great idea.

I just had a couple of things I picked up on that I hope in response to all the questions that come forward we might be able to shed a little more light on.

Ms. McPherson, you talked about a family-centred and coordinated approach, a family-centred community approach. I was interested to hear “family-centred”. So often I hear “child-centred” or “child advocacy”. If you could shed some light in your comments on the difference between family-centred... It sounds like you've learned something in this process that just championing children alone doesn't work. Maybe I'm interpreting some things—I don't know—but I'd like some more light shed on that.

It sounds like you're having lots of good meetings. The nineties is the age of the mega-meeting. For kids out there, these meetings matter not a whole bunch. If you can speak to some of the deliverables... We're all very pumped about another big meeting in Canada now; great, everybody's coming. But what's happening? What has changed? What concrete things have happened because of all these mega-meetings?

Maybe I'll leave it there, Mr. Chairman?

[Translation]

The Chairman: Ms. Gagnon.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon (Québec, BQ): It's a great pleasure to meet you. Parents of young children do not experience the same things on a daily basis as do parents of children with disabilities. It is difficult to get a break when one has to take care of the needs of children with various disabilities.

I can appreciate what you're saying, particularly after finding out this year that my young daughter suffers from a degenerative disease. I hope that she will not be confined one day to a wheelchair. When I was told about her illness, I was confronted with a terrible reality. I'm very protective of her. I make sure she has everything she needs and that she doesn't overdo it. I can understand all of the problems that fathers and mothers face, in addition to the pain they feel. When an illness strikes a young child, you learn to manage. That is what I've done with my daughter. I've managed the disease along with her.

I'm quite emotional this evening. Employers treat youths with disabilities unfairly. We must help these young people establish contacts with employers so that they can be more open to the opportunity of employing them and so that these youths are given an opportunity to be full members of society.

I have supported agencies in my riding that work with youth with disabilities, whether physical or mental, and that help them integrate the labor force. These youths are so happy when they get an opportunity to work and to be full members of society. Members of Parliament have an obligation to remove barriers and to enhance public awareness of the problem in order to provide these young people with the help they require.

I'm interested in the cause that you are defending and know that you have my support. I sense of great deal of warmth radiating from those who hold this cause dear to their heart. Those who do not have to confront this situation firsthand cannot understand what the child and his or her family go through every day.

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For the sake of greater public awareness, it's important to feel this warmth and to be able to communicate with these individuals.

The Chairman: Thank you, Ms. Gagnon.

[English]

I think I'll keep going.

Dr. Bennett, have you any questions or comments?

Ms. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's, Lib.): I have a couple. Obviously, for the congress and the international sharing of best practices, “best” becomes important in terms of policies that work. I mean, I always feel that best practices can only be called best practices if you've actually evaluated them and know what does and doesn't work.

I'm particularly interested in any area of the congress that would deal with issues around family support—how we actually deal with the families, who really do take the major responsibility.

Another area is prenatal diagnosis, because I think sometimes we really don't know where to go, and people stew about what is or isn't available for a long time before a child with special needs is born.

I guess if you had any help in terms of how broad the definition of disabilities is, and what counts and what doesn't count on the big spectrum from mental illness and learning disabilities to literacy... How do you do that?

The Chairman: Those are just a few of the pop-up questions that you should be able to handle in about five seconds.

I'm going to say hello to Andy Scott here, who has been long associated with these issues. Did you have a question or an intervention?

Hon. Andy Scott (Fredericton, Lib.): I have lots of chances to deal with...

The Chairman: Okay. Maria, did you have a...

Ms. Maria Minna (Beaches—East York, Lib.): I'm just going to say that I welcome you coming here.

We've all been working with Andy and this committee on these issues for some time. But I'm glad to see actually your little critique on the discussion paper, which we've only just started to deal with. It's very helpful because you're absolutely quite right. Somehow, sometimes, it's like a little blinker there and it's calling us to attention, which is a good thing.

My questions were similar to Carolyn's to some degree in terms of the spectrum with learning disabilities and others and whether you're looking at the specifics.

The Chairman: I hate to be in a rush here, but unless there are burning issues, I think we'll cut to the chase and get some answers, if we may.

Mr. Raffath Sayeed: Dr. McPherson, would you like to answer these—

Dr. Merle McPherson: In regard to the family-centred approach, I think the answer is yes, we think we've learned a lot in terms of... and it took us about a decade really before we had nerve enough to take the maternal and child health legislation and rewrite it. It really came from talking to and working with families and coming to understand the frustration they had in getting services, whether it was from public or private agencies, and to understand what they really needed and how to deliver it.

So when we talk about a family-centred model of care, we're really talking about one in which there is a very different partnership with families.

We actually have a national organization at this point in time that is called Family Voices. They work with us at our level, whether it's policy, programs, or practice. They work at the state level, which is equivalent to your provinces. And they work family to family in terms of the family-to-family support programs, etc. We actually have a request in to our Congress right now for $5 million to help expand that. So I think there is something called a family-centred model that is much more responsive in working with families and what they want as outcomes, etc.

We've also, as a piece of that, done a lot of work in what's called family professional collaboration, because in addition to teaching families, you have to teach the doctors, the nurses, and the social workers how to work with the family, as opposed to saying, I'll take care of the child and I'll tell you what to do. It's a very different pattern. There really is some very defined science, etc., out there.

I share your concern with not just talking, but getting down to the work we did. Actually, when we went in internationally, that was really what we said. We did not want to go in and work at a meeting level. We really started with five communities, and I'd love to take you to those communities today, because there are still good people over there doing things, working with us. And we feel the same way. There's lots to do in our own country in terms of getting services down.

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We have a set of performance measures now that are really saying—whether it's a meeting or an advocacy group—is it really measuring out in terms of whether the kids are getting medical care, whether the financing of care has been improved, and whether they are being identified earlier? They're called national performance measures. I agree with you. There are a number of things that really translate out to products that make a difference.

The Chairman: Zuhy.

Ms. Zuhy Sayeed: I'll just piggyback onto Dr. McPherson. I think our excitement may be giving you the impression that this congress will be huge and that there will be a lot of rhetorical talk. We'd just like to make it clear that at the last congress, the fifth international congress, there were 150 key people from various ministries, governments, policy departments, and families in grassroots communities. We hope that with the Canadian participation there will be new links that we will create amongst other countries. We would have a maximum of maybe 300 people, who would then turn around and work through their various countries' departments and ministries, and UNICEF, UNESCO, etc., and really put what has been learned out into the field, so that children will be impacted. We want to develop the kinds of outcomes and measurables that Dr. McPherson has talked about, and we have seen in the last five congresses that a difference has certainly been made. With key representation, that can continue to happen.

The Chairman: Dr. Magrab.

Ms. Phyllis Magrab: I would just like to respond to Dr. Bennett, whom I think raised some very critical issues in terms of implementation of best practices. I think in a congress like this it's an opportunity to look at it on different levels, on the service delivery level—actual delivery and practice—and also on the program planning and policy levels. It's a way of bringing together those three elements in a form that usually doesn't occur. Usually those forms are silos and don't come together.

So I think in response to the earlier question as well, we've seen that the changes have been in the system changes in these countries. The Agenda for Action that you see is a product, actually, of the first congress, much to the dismay of the Canadians, a consensus process that took five hours and got the full attention that a consensus process should get. Yet that Agenda for Action has served these countries so well in terms of saying, these are the standards we need to be aiming toward, and has actually influenced policy and practice in a number of the countries.

Mr. Raffath Sayeed: I will take Madam Gagnon's comments as a question on how we eliminate prejudice, which is why we've identified inclusive education as a priority. It starts at the very early stage of a young child's growth and development. It first starts in the child's family, where the child is nurtured and raised in the family, as opposed to what happened in the past, when the child was sent off to an institution. Thank God those things are very rare now. They still happen, but they are rare.

Then we go into the educational system, which is a priority for all of us. Again, this is connected with the child. The child is not in unison; the child has to be raised in the family. The family needs support and the family needs to be involved in the child's growth. The family needs to create the community where the child can grow. The time has come that we don't want to fix the child; we have to fix society. No longer do we rehabilitate the individual; we rehabilitate the community. We prepare communities to accept diversity in whatever shape, size, or form, and I think it starts with inclusive education.

That is one way of addressing prejudices, because today's classmate and peer is tomorrow's employer or co-worker. The support we all need will be translated eventually into something practical. So I use that as an example of how we could eventually address the prejudice that occurs in life.

The Chairman: I was wondering, were there any other... I think Dr. Bennett had that little pop-up at the end about definitions.

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Dr. Merle McPherson: Do you want me to comment on definitions? When you live in this field, you live from year to year, and there are always new definitions. I'll tell you the final definition, however, because we published it; therefore it's the right one.

If you go to the February issue of the American Academy of Pediatrics... there is a definition of children with special health care needs. I'm being somewhat facetious, but we did it on the basis of a national disability survey. We really tried to take an inclusive definition so that we could come to some agreement, in a child population, about how many you would expect to have a disability, chronic illness, broadly stated. You come out with about 18% of the kids that really qualify, from a mild asthma on through to severe spina bifida, and so on.

I think that's an important piece of work, because you will forever subdivide that set of children, depending on what piece of legislation you're passing, or depending on what benefits you want to give in a particular program, and so on, or depending on what research you're doing. But at least it brought people together in terms of coming to some kind of understanding and agreement, rather than whether it was developmental or emotional or physical and so on; that there was a set of children out there who needed services over and above what children generally need.

I think it also helped try to move away from those attitudes of labelling children or diagnosing them and so on. That's where we are at this point in terms of talking about that population of children, understanding that not all pieces of legislation serve them all. You can sit and argue where you're going to draw the line, but at least we have some understanding of who those populations of children are. That's a piece of work we just finished.

Mr. Raffath Sayeed: I'll be very brief. I know the bells are ringing for you.

One of the things that has happened to us in the past—I'm speaking as a physician, and there are other physicians here—is following the medical model, we're trying to cure or fix. Disability is going to be there; we will never eradicate it. It comes with age eventually. It is disabling. So our challenge is to teach the medical profession right from their educational experiences in medical school not to label children, or label anybody, adults, and to work with families in saying, how can we prepare the family and the community to cater to and support these people? That's a challenge, and actually our counterpart in Quebec, the Quebec association, has challenged the Canadian association to take some steps in addressing the issue of how you educate MDs not to be so closed-minded and look for a diagnosis and a cure.

The Chairman: I think on that note we're going to interrupt. We will cut to the social part, of course, at 6 p.m., in room 601. Since Dr. Bennett is paying, I think, I'm inviting everybody in the room, plus if you have friends... please bring everybody you know in town.

I want to thank you for coming. It has been a very useful meeting for both committees. I know the researchers were jotting down notes on certain things that have been said, so it will feed into our work. And it has put on the record both this wonderful congress you have created and that we'll be having here in Canada and what you have given us today—a great deal of food for thought. We thank you for your formal presentations.

This meeting is adjourned.