Thank you. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, I will note the Member's suggestions. I do not have an answer to his concerns today, frankly. It is very clear that we are not doing the kind of measurement that the Member is suggesting, but I will ask my officials to examine that and advise me whether we can do more extensive monitoring.

Mr. Chairman, I want to show respect to the Chair, at all times, but I have to challenge you in suggesting that you know someone who had smoked all their life, and did not develop cancer. I have to tell you that 80 percent of cancer deaths are related to smoking, over 80 percent, and if you know someone who has lived a long life and avoided cancer through heavy smoking, then you know a minority. You know someone who has beaten the odds.

The fact is, in the territories, women have a 200 percent higher than national average of getting cancer, twice the national average. Men in the Northwest Territories have over half as much chance of getting compared to the Canadian average, and that is because we are heavy smokers in the north. The rates are going up. It is killing our people, and it is killing our health system as far as costs are concerned. No one should pretend that it is okay to smoke, and you can live to a ripe old age. I have to challenge you on that, Mr. Chairman, with the greatest respect.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. I think you misunderstood me. What I said was, I know of people who die of cancer who have never, ever smoked in their life. That was my comment. Department of Health. Mr. Gargan.

Mr. Chairman, the Minister just gave us with confidence some analysis on cancer, you must have been monitoring to come to that conclusion. I guess that is my point. You would not be able to say that unless you knew, through long periods of monitoring, that is the trend.

The other question, Mr. Chairman, is we do have the Baffin Health Board, and the Keewatin Health Board, and all of these nice boards, but we do not have a Mackenzie Health Board. I wonder when we are going to have something in my area, not that we want one, but it would be nice if we created a Deh Cho Health Board, or a south Slave Health Board, those are the only regions that are operating with no boards.

Thank you, Mr. Gargan. The honourable Minister.

Mr. Chairman, I would welcome the honourable Member's assistance is solving this problem. I am not happy that we have a public administrator for the south Mackenzie area. I am told, and I am new to this job, that efforts have been made to seek agreement from the Deh Cho, the south Slave and the Dogrib people, about how a health board could be constituted.

We have been unable to achieve agreement and consensus on that, but if there is a way of doing it, and honourable Members from those regions can assist me in coming up with a model that will be accepted by those regions, I would be delighted to assist in constituting a board. Thank you.

Thank you. We are discussing the Department of Health, 1992-93 Main Estimates. Detail?

Agreed.

Agreed. Mr. Dent.

Page 14-10 administration, total O & M $10.879 million.

Agreed.

Thank you. Supplementary health programs. Mr. Gargan.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just with regard, again, to the medical travel and medical benefits, extended health benefits, are government employees still practising restraint, or are we still paying an exorbitant cost for government employees to travel south for their health benefits?

Thank you. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, that area is the responsibility of the Department of Personnel.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Gargan.

Thank you.

---Laughter

With regard to the Metis and non-native residents, with specified diseases who receive coverage, is it possible to broaden that a bit? I think we could put the Metis people in a different category so that they receive more benefits than non-native people? There must be a way of addressing their specific needs so that, at least, they have the same level of service as, maybe, status people.

It has been worked on for about five years now, if I recall, Mr. Chairman, and there have been motions on it. Mr. Koe brought it up. What are we doing to expand and to help the Metis population of the north?

Thank you, Mr. Gargan. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, the Metis have advocated that they should be treated the same as status people, the Inuit and status Dene people. We are examining

that, and I guess the first step is the enumeration I referred to just to find out who are the Metis in the Northwest Territories. Once we have done that, it is under way right now, then we will be in a position to calculate the cost of extending benefits.

The Member is right. The extended health benefits program described in this section applies to everyone, including Metis. And so we are taking a universal approach with this list of diseases, but as I understand the Metis health benefits issue, we would look at funding Metis health benefits as if they were the same as the status people, and that would be a benefit different from that offered to non-native, non-status. That exercise is under way, and I think we should let it run its course before we fiddle with the extended health benefits. That would be my view, to work with the Metis Nation, take the next step, and then see where we are. Thank you.

Qujannamiik. Mr. Nerysoo.

Maybe, Mr. Chairman, if I might, I know that there is a great deal of pride in people, and sometimes the idea of using Bill C-31 is not always an advantage for people. The fact is those people have the capacity to register as status Indians under Bill C-31. It is an advantage not only for them, but also in terms of making sure that this government, hopefully, will get additional financial resources for health services in the Northwest Territories. In fact, in other areas where the federal government is supposedly responsible, so I think that some people have great pride in Metis or non-status. The fact is it could be a factor at times in their decision, so I just wanted to make that point.

The other point that I wanted to raise, Mr. Chairman, this matter that was raised, I do not know the details on the Keewatin situation, it really is not my constituency, but I want to be clear about this. Is it correct that the additional cost is $300,000? Is that what the options are? Or the consideration? I just want to raise one point after you.

Thank you, Mr. Nerysoo. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, I should say that this is all still under active discussion at the officials level, and undoubtedly at the political level, and so the $300,000 figure I threw out was tentative and preliminary. It is an estimate, and I do not pretend that it is going to be accurate, but that is our ball park estimate of the difference at the moment.