Thank you, Madam Chairperson. The reason I ask the question is, especially coming from an aboriginal community where they feel that they should be receiving more in the way of health care and also because of their status as aboriginal people, that there is a responsibility of the federal government who funds this government to deliver programs and services on their behalf. We always seem to come to the
conclusion, no one knows exactly what that amount is or exactly how much is really going into the overall part of this government. We all know that a large majority of the funds that we do get from this government come from Ottawa. There are program dollars that are delivered to this government from the Department of Indian Affairs in Ottawa because of treaties. I would like to know exactly when self-government agreements come into play, the role in the territories for aboriginal groups has the right to deliver programs and services on behalf of the people they represent. In the case of the aboriginal groups I represent, the Gwich'in and the Inuvialuit, basically if they decide they want to take over the whole health care system in the Inuvik region for the Inuvialuit and the Gwich'in, that it has to be based on some formula or some scenario of how much does it cost to deliver health care and exactly how much money is there in the overall pot which will be divided up by the different regions in the west and the different political structures we have. I would like to know exactly what is being done so that when that scenario comes to be, that there will be some number crunching done to identify exactly what is going to be classified as fair allocations and how do you determine those allocations. Can the Minister tell me exactly if any of that work has been done and exactly how soon can we get an idea of what these amounts are going to look like?