I want to thank the CCA and Human Resources Development Canada for their financial assistance. I especially want to thank Dr. Jim Nykoliation, who took on this thankless task before he had any idea how much work would be involved. Just as we are winding down the AIT effort, we have been getting the Specialties Transition Committee into high gear. This Committee held its first meeting last November and will meet again in March. There is participation from all of the five existing specialty colleges and the expectations for what this can mean for chiropractic is very high.
Specialties can only effectively exist when recognized by a provincial regulatory board.
Research into how medicine, dentistry and veterinary medicine handle specialties has been conducted and the Chair of the Committee, Dr. Danis has concluded that chiropractic is lagging behind. The Committee will come up with a model that will meet the needs of chiropractic and gain recognition for our specialties by the community. It is our hope that the provincial regulatory boards will embrace this new model so that there is a consistent definition of Specialties across Canada. I would like to congratulate Dr. MacPhee for pulling together the 1999 Annual Conference. We know that one of our key objectives is to present timely and relevant information to regulatory boards.