Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, as I have said before, we are not directly involved in funding research in this area. It would be good for us to be informed of the results of such research. As I stated earlier, I could undertake to set up some form of communication mechanism between funded research projects in our department where it may affect the health status of Northerners.

As far as our department tracking incidents of certain illnesses, and the Member refers specifically to cancer, we do have the cancer registry, which indicates that the Northwest Territories residents actually have cancer at a lower than national average rate. However, the officials inform me that there is a pocket of people who reside in the Sahtu area where there is some markedly higher incidents of certain types of cancer.

We do follow and we are involved in water testing. Certainly, our health status report would indicate the health statistics of Northerners. We are involved in that, but we would not, at this time, appear to have a specific mechanism whereby we would be informed of research projects funded by the Science Institute. Thank you.