Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to get back to the broader issues of governance and organizational structures. The discussion has been a comparison of sorts between education and health and social services. When you put them side-by-side, they both have Ministers, they both have deputies, they both have ADMs -- of course, Health has the associate, which no other department has -- they have directors on down to managers. Then you get into the boards.

They also operate under the same kind of financial systems as departments. The FAA is the bible. They are supposed to be following the basic human resource policies and regulations of the government. Very clearly at this point, how the departments are operating are significantly different. They do have a lot in common as government departments.

The question is what is the problem with the systems in place in Health in terms of information, the financial relationships with the department itself and the boards...in all of these areas? It makes it impossible at this point to get the kind of accountability, the kind of monitoring and the kind of information the department says is lacking.

Clearly, there are some problems with the structures and how things are being run as we speak. There is a difference.

My understanding as well is that health boards and DECs have almost an equivalent amount of autonomy under their respective legislation. The DECs have a tremendous amount of authority to do things.

The question as well comes back to the acknowledged problems with good information, which has resulted in poor recommendations and inaccurate or possibly less than adequate recommendations to boards, committees, Ministers over the last couple of years. That brings into question the information in the budget. How is that impacted by that acknowledged shortfall of good, blue-chip information?

We have made a lot of decisions in the last two years based on the information that has been provided, accepting at face value that it was "good information." To me, that is a question that has to be addressed. We keep focusing in the discussion right back down to health boards, but the broader issues are still there in my mind.

The Minister said that she did not think the way we characterize our relationship between the boards and the departments was really fair or accurate. I would suggest that in fact it is fairly accurate. Once again, what you had in health up until very recently was health boards forming their own health care association so that they could better do business with the government in a way that seemed to be structured in quite an adversarial way. It has now been disbanded, but that whole mentality is still there.

I would say as well that those health boards that have no budgets at this point, at the start of another fiscal year, are at the very least very frustrated, especially when the issue is the department saying they cannot get good information from the health boards, that the health boards are not giving them what they need.

Mr. Chairman, there are some fundamental organizational questions that go from the very top of that department to the communities with their health boards. When you look at all of those relationships and all of those systems in place, the question I have to the Minister is what changes are they going to make? Not only looking at how the health boards run, but as the department runs, to ensure that they do have good financial information and accountability systems. The other human resource information and other operational information that you need is there. It is not a situation where we are in the 12th month of a fiscal year and the debate is, "We are not getting good information. We do not know what the deficits are." That brings us to the question of how accurate is this information in the main estimates?

My other final question -- and we are going to recognize the clock, I would imagine -- I would like to know Mr. Cuff's involvement, his previous experience in Alberta. Did he get his spurs in the rolling up of the health boards in Alberta? Is that where he comes to us from, with that sort of involvement?

I see that it is six o'clock, Mr. Chairman, so I will conclude my remarks at this point.