Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For many years my people have been going to hospital. For them a trip to hospital was not down the road. Many of them have travelled by ship, airplane and even railroad to get to a hospital in the south. Many of our relatives did not return from southern hospitals, even now, we are still locating the graves of our relatives.

Mr. Speaker, our people have very mixed feelings about hospitals over the years but we all agree that getting a hospital in our region was a vast improvement over ending up in Hamilton, Ontario. We still travel a long way to our hospital and it is still complicated. We recognize the reality that a hospital for each community is not possible. We also recognize that there is only one hospital in the Baffin region. Fifteen thousand people in an area of two thousand kilometres from end to end with some of the most difficult weather and flying conditions in the world.

Mr. Speaker, if we can only afford one hospital in these circumstances, then it must be the best possible. We have learned that our existing thirty-five year old hospital was planned for a replacement many years ago and that the Government of Canada has even been paying instalments towards this replacement. We learned yesterday that these instalments have been swallowed up by the GNWT's general operating fund and have been spent.