Thank you very much, Madam Chair and honourable members, for the opportunity to address you today regarding the work of the federal health portfolio on autism spectrum disorders, or ASD.

Let me say at the outset that I am not an expert on ASD. My own research through the University of Toronto deals with musculoskeletal health and arthritis. But as the chief scientific officer for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, or CIHR, I am pleased to bring you information about federal ASD-related projects. My colleague, Dr. Nathalie Gendron, is with me today as a subject-matter expert.

Your deliberations are about ways to raise awareness of ASD, and I submit to you that the research and surveillance activities supported by the health portfolio provide the facts on which to build this new and growing awareness. At the same time, drawing increased public attention to ASD serves to highlight the impact of research and to generate more support for it.

If we are to do justice to this issue by raising more public awareness about it, one of the most important things we can do is to continue to build our knowledge base and to apply that knowledge to ease the path of people with ASD and their families. The Government of Canada supports a number of activities aimed at doing just that. For instance, my colleagues at the Public Health Agency of Canada are developing a national surveillance mechanism to systematically collect essential data to better understand how many Canadians are living with ASD, and their circumstances.

To ensure that the surveillance system is robust and useful, the agency consulted with provincial and territorial governments to determine priorities and data availability. It has also established an expert advisory committee to review information collected from the provinces and territories and to help identify indicators and appropriate models. This committee includes representatives from government, universities, health care, and community groups.

With respect to advancing the science of ASD, the Government of Canada has made significant investments through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Since its inception in 2000, CIHR has invested nearly $44 million in autism-related research, with $5.8 million invested this year alone.

Our work in the area of ASD is led by our Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction, but several of our other institutes are also involved. This helps to bring to bear many academic disciplines and perspectives on this very complex problem.

Through CIHR, the Government of Canada has recently established a chair in ASD treatment and care research. The purpose of the chair is to support an early career investigator to bring innovative approaches to the treatment and/or care of ASD. Partners for the chair competition are CIHR; Autism Speaks Canada; the Canadian Autism Spectrum Disorders Alliance; Health Canada; NeuroDevNet, which is one of the national centres of excellence; and the Sinneave Family Foundation.

We are delighted that Dr. Jonathan Weiss of York University has accepted the chair appointment, following a rigorous selection process that was administered by CIHR. Dr. Weiss is a licensed clinical psychologist and a rising star in ASD research.

In addition to this new chair position, CIHR is supporting a range of other research projects into ASD and activities through our regular granting mechanisms. People like Dr. Adrienne Perry at York University, Dr. Susan Bryson at McMaster, and Dr. Isabel Smith at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, among others, are all contributing to the ASD knowledge base.

Other CIHR research programs are aimed at health services. For instance, the CIHR signature initiative in community-based primary health care encourages researchers to investigate the ways in which health care services are structured, regulated, managed, financed, used, and delivered. For people living with ASD and their families, better service delivery could make all the difference.

Finally, in our convenor role, CIHR supported the international meeting for autism research and a stakeholder-focused workshop held in Toronto in May of this year.

CIHR is also pleased to reach out to stakeholders and interested members of the public regarding ASD. We'll be doing this again on October 29 in Edmonton, when the CIHR Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction hosts a Café Scientifique on ASD. This will be a great opportunity for raising awareness and sharing the latest in scientific research on ASD in an informal and comfortable setting.

Madam Chair, honourable members, I would like to close simply by emphasizing the fact that the efforts I have outlined are not solutions in themselves. Rather, they are interdependent activities that get us closer to a solution. Our approach must continue to combine work on causes, treatments, and care with surveillance and sustained efforts at raising awareness.

I thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you today. I'll be happy to answer questions later.

Thank you.

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