Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman in regards to this item, Aboriginal Affairs and the specific item that we are dealing with is the Metis Nation grant which was $250,000 last year and we are reducing it to $225,000 and it is a 10 percent cut. I know the Metis Nation locals depend on this assistance and they were spared any reduction in the funding during last year's business planning, budget reduction processes. The standing committee recommended a review of the contribution policy with the objective of fostering a greater self reliance for all aboriginal people. In looking at the contribution policy, we looked at it, and we are currently consulting with the Metis organization on the proposed changes to this contribution. In this year's business plan, 1997/98 resulted in a 10 percent reduction as the ministries tried to minimize the impact by evenly distributing reductions. As I said at the beginning, this ministry is small but very key. It is dealing with a lot of sensitive key
issues. However in this budget reduction exercise that we have all been involved with, everybody takes a cut, including this ministry, and the cut here is 10 percent and this is part of our budget reduction exercises. In regards to what type of resources this ministry has in helping and supporting aboriginal organizations, we have 19 approved positions in the ministry, 17 of them are filled, seven employees are aboriginal, including the deputy minister and we have also indigenous and long-term. We have five employees in that category. So we have a couple of vacant positions currently and soon, we hope it is in the supp, we are not supposed to talk about it yet, but there are going to be additional ones there. The policy of this ministry is to try to get people in there that comply with the affirmative action policy. Thank you.