Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Baffin regional director presently chairs the regional wellness committee which is composed of the department of the Government of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, and also the Baffin Regional Inuit Association and the Baffin Regional Health Board.

If the regional director is being removed, who will provide this coordinating function?

If one department of our government is going to be taking over this coordinating role, how will the total government perspective be maintained by one individual department?

Mr. Speaker, since the chair of the regional wellness committee has been assuming a coordinating role encouraging and even demanding other departments and the boards of this government to cooperate with one another, how will that monitoring, coordinating and leadership role be carried out by one department of many from within the region?

Compared to the advantages of coordination by a regional director who is independent of all departments and also is a senior government official in the region, wouldn't it be easier for coordinating and a monitoring role to be carried out at the regional level amongst departments by the most senior employee in the region, rather than by an employee with equal status to all other departmental superintendents in the regions? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.