Thank you, Madam Chairperson. I do not have the specifics of our review with me, but in terms of southern referrals there has been no upward trend. We have very, very few southern referrals, that is, people being referred out of the territories. There has been a slight drop overall in terms of the number of people that are being placed in treatment at NAS. In the early part of this year, there has been a fairly significant increase at Nats' ejee K'eh on the Hay River Reserve and there has been an increase into the Iqaluit centre. Recently, we have done an extensive amount of developmental work among the three Nunavut boards and that treatment centre and they have actually recently completed a full program with almost 100 percent occupancy, so it was a significant success. There has been no downturn in significant numbers in terms of people accessing treatment and no increase in terms of people leaving the territories for treatment. Thank you.

Our expectation is that we can do that through the next four to five months. We are awaiting the opportunity to have preliminary discussions with the new

Nunavut deputy so that we can do the work on a future two territories basis, but we expect to complete this first round of assessment and put forward our recommendations in the next four to five months. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. The first efforts the department did, certainly in their recent history, we worked with the Health Care Association to adopt and then do some adaptation to the carver model and there was a fairly extensive round of workshops done with all boards? To my knowledge now, there are three or four people in the NWT who have received the training to actually deliver the carver model training. It is not narrowed down to a specific person. In the work that we are developing now with respect to board evaluation, we have included a section in there to ensure that we monitor the ongoing currency of training for all trustees. We have one person who is focused on monitoring the process of trustee appointment and then monitoring both the currency of their appointment and the currency of their training. With some of the new appointments, obviously we are not at 100 percent in terms of our satisfaction on training, but we are positioned to get there. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. Yesterday I had asked some questions in relation to tuberculosis in the Northwest Territories and the reply had indicated that they would try to provide me with some information today. I was wondering if that information is available.

I will ask Mr. Ramsden to respond. Thank you.

Madam Chairperson, I had the opportunity to confer with the chief medical health officer today and he advises me that we have no cases that we are dealing with at this time where drug resistant tuberculosis has developed. The answer at this point, the incidence is zero. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. In another area, we had met with the NWT Medical Association and one of their concerns was the need to resolve the definition of the most appropriate provider for health care in the communities of the north. Has there been any movement in this area to properly define this term, most appropriate provider?

Madam Chairperson, the medical association and the registered nursing association are engaged at this point in a formal dialogue. The department has participated in that and what they are trying to do, at least in that particular area, is delineate roles and responsibilities for particularly family physicians and nurse practitioners. I think what we find most helpful in that kind of an area is that it will help us to determine the kinds of, both upfront and ongoing, education and training that family physicians and nurse practitioners need to be both working together and be fully competent in terms of their respective roles. The whole issue of most appropriate care provider needs to go much beyond the debate between physician and nurse. We anticipate exploring areas of role definition for CHRs, social workers, mental health workers and family counsellors, there is still a significant amount of work to do to formally delineate roles and responsibilities. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. Did the deputy minister indicate that work is proceeding in all those areas that he mentioned toward the last part of his answer?