Hello and bonjour.
C'est un grand plaisir d'être ici avec vous aujourd'hui.
It's great to be back in Toronto at York University's truly impressive Life Sciences Building.
I'm proud to be celebrating the successful completion of the Connected Health and Wellness Project with all of you here today.
I'd like to congratulate both York University and McMaster who, in addition to their tremendous efforts in establishing this project, have contributed to making Ontario's higher education and research institutions internationally recognized for their excellence.
I'm looking forward to hearing remarks from York University's President and Vice Chancellor Dr. Mamdouh Shoukri and Tracey Carr, the Director of McMaster University's Department of Family Medicine.
I'd also like to recognize William Tatham, CEO of NexJ Systems, for his leadership in this collaboration with York and McMaster.
Together, all of the many partners have helped to make the Connected Health and Wellness Project a resounding success.
Ladies and gentlemen, when I announced this project back in September 2012, I said that our investment would allow York University and its partners to take on a collaborative project that could revolutionize healthcare delivery in Canada and around the world.
And here we are today, celebrating some of the project's many innovative accomplishments including NexJ's Connected Wellness – the world's first cloud-based platform that allows patients to self-manage their healthcare after they leave their doctor's office.
This project is a great example of innovation and partnership. In fact, I plan on highlighting the many successes of the project when I speak at more project completion ceremonies across southern Ontario.
It's no secret that innovation is the key to success, not just for the health sector, but for all sectors.
New ideas, new products, and new approaches to how we do things are critical to ensuring our nation's prosperity.
And I can tell you that the Government of Canada is setting the right macro-economic conditions to prosper.
We continue to focus on maintaining and creating jobs.
We remain focused on keeping taxes low and returning to balanced budgets; maintaining our exemplary banking system; keeping our families and communities safe; standing up for Canada; and being vigilant about the uncertain world economy.
The results of these actions are clear.
And ladies and gentlemen, I can tell you that the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, or FedDev Ontario as we call it, is focused on building a strong foundation of partnerships and relationships to secure southern Ontario's and Canada's long-term prosperity.
In our first four years, we have committed over $1.1 billion, resulting in partnerships with more than 5,300 organizations and over $1.5 billion in additional leveraged investments from almost exclusively non-government sources to support businesses, manufacturers, organizations and communities in southern Ontario.
This includes a number of innovative projects designed to benefit the health care sector throughout the region.
And it is these innovative projects that will ultimately lead to the development of new technologies that will contribute to making us healthier, saving lives and improving our quality of life, both economically and socially.
Today we celebrate the completion of a project that fits this description perfectly.
With 17 partners from the public sector, private sector, and of course academia, the Connected Health and Wellness Project had a common and clear vision: a future of healthcare that is people-centred.
And that future is based on the idea that we should be involved in our healthcare; that we should be in control of our health information. And this involvement should start well before we get sick.
This involvement includes using technology to link patient and health information with hospitals, physicians and healthcare professionals ─ this has the power to transform how people manage their health here in Ontario, across the country and around the world.
I think we all know that bringing this kind of major social industry change, like we're celebrating here today, does not come easily.
The success of this project is a result of your hard work, your clear vision and your ability to create real sustainable partnerships. Congratulations once again to everyone involved!
While it takes financial investment, leadership and vision to complete a major project like this one, real change comes when we collaborate – each drawing on their own unique expertise and talents.
This project has succeeded in creating a world-leading business and academic cluster that will grow value-chains, continue to create jobs, offer real solutions to health care issues and, ultimately contribute to a healthier, stronger and more prosperous environment for the people and families of southern Ontario and for all of Canada.
You are also positioning southern Ontario as a leader in advancing health coaching, an emerging profession that integrates the use of online tools with the practice of health promotion, behaviour change, disease prevention, and chronic disease management.
At FedDev Ontario, we are currently accepting applications for our new initiatives which are aimed at strengthening the economy, positioning the region to compete globally by helping create and grow businesses, and cultivating partnerships and building strong communities.
I won't have time to go through all the initiatives in detail, but I do want to mention one that might be relevant for some of you here today. It's called the Investing in Commercialization Partnerships initiative.
I don't need to tell you that Canada is extremely well-positioned in our research capacity at our universities and colleges, but we're not so good at moving that knowledge creation out into the marketplace.
This program supports business-led partnerships with a focus on developing globally-competitive products and services, or innovation platforms. These are structures or services that partners can use to test, refine or develop applications to help bring products from lab to market. All of this can help business get a solution to a problem they are facing or to help commercialize an invention.
FedDev Ontario, through programming like this, continues to foster and encourage the technology transfer between research and business to help bring new ideas to market.
I encourage you to visit the FedDev Ontario website to learn more.
I understand that part of my role here in this celebration is to officially launch the newly revamped Connected Health and Wellness website that documents the outcomes of this project.
I know you're all anxious to see the launch of this new site so I will finish by saying this.
A healthy and economically prosperous Canada is not created by a single company or organization. It is through partnerships and projects such as this one that we will improve innovation and entrepreneurship and discover even more opportunities for growth. Our government is proud to be a partner in this tremendous venture.
Congratulations again to all of you here today. It's truly commendable that you have built something that is taking health care and health information into the future.
Thank you and Merci.
