Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Member is right about the need for communities to have access to sufficient resources to deal with the problems and concerns at a local level.

To that end, one issue that we have been very actively pursuing in the department over the past year, has been working with the federal government to try to better coordinate the significant amount of funding that they flow to Northwest Territories communities through dozens of programs, so that federal monies can be combined with Government of the Northwest Territories monies to create one window of access for funding for community wellness dollars.

We have made quite a bit of progress in this initiative with our federal counterparts and we are talking to the territorial aboriginal organizations about collaborating with us. Several of these programs have an aboriginal aspect. They are dedicated funds solely for aboriginal people and we feel it is important that we bring in the aboriginal leadership into that decision-making process as well.

In a very quick way, just to say we have made quite a bit of progress over the last few months, we hope to conclude these discussions over the next six months. We feel we should be in a position to have this one window created, where we can pool all of this funding. Instead of communities having to apply to up to a dozen different programs to get prenatal funding from here and daycare money from here and alcohol and drug money from over there, they can put together an integrated approach to community wellness that suits their community and reflects their needs. They can apply to one funder who can then flow funds so that they do not have to do multiple proposals, audits, and then multiple sets of books.

The added value to this, I think, will be an opportunity for us at the territorial level to engage with the aboriginal leadership and with our federal counterparts around the evidence about health status so that we can really make sure that the dollars that we have available are directed where they will do the most good.

For example, to make sure that our approach to prenatal nutrition, hot lunch or breakfast programs in schools are run as efficiently in communities as possible, so that we can make sure that we get the maximum amount of dollars in a program area and a minimum amount of dollars on the administration side.

We really hope that we will be able to provide our Minister with a good status report on this initiative in the months to come and then I am sure in turn she will be pleased to communicate that to you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.