Thank you, Ms. Praamsma. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would suggest then that it would be a worthwhile goal and target to say that over the next year you were going to establish this data and benchmarks. I do not know how long that is going to take, but if you are going to come back next year, I am assuming you are going to have some benchmarks. I find it hard to believe that as a department, the rates of hospitalization and those kinds of issues have not been tracked, rates of immunization. You want to target 99 percent. Where are we today?

Those are the questions there. To use your example of the alignment of health and social services boards, if you take that goal and you look at that, and you put page 22 by page 23, it is virtually identical. Why would you refer to it twice? Why would you ever use any of those three twice, when all you have added is a couple of what we are aiming at targets and timeframes, in which the desired outcome is identical and what you will measure is the same. You have added just a couple. Maybe you could touch on that. When you talk about sustained you have no benchmarks, so we have to wait for a year but that you do not identify developing these benchmarks and databases as a priority to be able to, in fact, measure what you are doing strikes me as odd. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Ms. Praamsma.

Thank you, Ms. Praamsma. Mr. Miltenberger.

Mr. Chairman. I will have to get them to walk me through this because if I put those two together, alignment of services, you put them side by side, what we will measure is identical. The outcomes are identical all the way down, except for the last three. When you look at what we are aiming for target timeframes, it is the same thing.

I do not know what is different about these three different outcomes. I do not understand that. There are some things that have to be there, Mr. Chairman. Immunization, you track that, you know what we are at right now. Where do you want to be? In three years you want to be 99 percent, but where are we now? I mean there are some of these things that you know, you have to know. You have been running as a department for over a decade, I think, or two decades, whatever it is since we took over from the federal government. Some of that stuff has to be there. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Is that just a comment? I did not hear a question there. Mr. Miltenberger.

Mr. Chairman, there was a question on those two goals that are identical, the desired outcomes are identical. What we will measure is almost word for word identical, what we are aiming for. I do not know the difference or why they are replicated and this is an issue that we will have to track. I made the case for it tonight. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Member suggested that he might need someone to help him walk through that. We will happily get together with him and do that. Maybe that would make it clear for him. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Mr. Chairman, just while that information is being found, we did get a note from the department that indicates that we have done extensive testing on PCB's over the last five years to establish a baseline on contaminants and the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs has also done considerable work through the Arctic Environmental Strategy. Though just a full response to a previous question asked by the same Member, that is just a little bit more information on that particular one.

Mr. Chairman, under our 1999 Northwest Territories health status reports, it talks about major causes of mortality. I will just read from this, "When adjusted for age of population, mortality due to cancer in the Northwest Territories was about the same as the rate as for the rest of Canada. Mortality due to circular disease was closer to, although still lower, than the rest of Canada and mortality due to respiratory disease was higher than in the rest of the country."

This is just an interesting tidbit, however, the rate of mortality due to injuries in the Northwest Territories was more than twice the rate for the rest of Canada. I may have been incorrect in saying they were lower, but we are no higher than the national average for cancer. I said respiratory, that is what you were asking me about. Sorry, Mr. Chairman.

What this Member was asking me about earlier today was studies that might have been done on the effects of dust and that would be something that would effect respiratory illnesses. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I indicated before, when the satellite, I guess it was a Russian satellite, fell and broke into little pieces, I am not aware of any post-clean-up research that was done to indicate whether everything had been found. Certainly when we talk about the kinds of things that affect the health of Northerners and the mortality rates due to things such as injury related to alcohol and cancer related to tobacco and all kinds of other things, it is just an interesting comparison. As I said before, to my knowledge, there has never been any post-clean-up research done on whether or not there is any radioactive material.

I understand that in relation to the mining that was done and the transportation of radioactive material on ships and barges, there was quite a comprehensive study undertaken not so long ago to find out if there were any trace radioactive material that had been left on tubs, barges, in communities, things of that nature related to the mining of uranium. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I will commit to having officials in my department contact the Department of National Defense to see if there is a report of the clean-up operations and how successful they were. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Nitah.