Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With regard to the list that the Minister mentioned, I do not believe she mentioned any of the communities I represent. So, there again, that program is not being delivered to all communities. That is the problem that I have with the way this department is operating. It serves some communities, but it does not serve all communities and I think that is a problem that has to be looked at.

I think it is also imperative that a lot of the aboriginal communities have lost faith or lost trust within this government when it comes to depending on this government to deal with problems in our communities, especially relating to alcohol and drugs and FAS.

A lot of communities have turned to the federal government because of the reluctancy of this government to deal with those problems in a lot of our small aboriginal communities.

So in regard to the issue I mentioned yesterday, in regard to trying to eliminate the barriers between different providers of alcohol and drug programs and front-line staff that are being affected in our communities, I will use an example. In Fort McPherson, we have the Tl'oondih Healing Society upstairs in a building, and downstairs we have the alcohol and drug programs and both of them are doing their own thing. However, a lot of the funds that the Tl'oondih healing program gets, they work along with the band councils and the tribal councils, where they access federal dollars to carry out a lot of their programs and services.

So we are having duplicate services being provided by two agencies within one community. The same thing applies to the other smaller communities where the resources that you get, say in Aklavik, for alcohol and drug workers, they cannot sustain staff or people to carry out those programs because for the resources they are getting based on a per capita distribution, which is being done by the Inuvik Regional Health Board. You cannot serve your clients in the community with those limited resources and be able to carry out the program.

So you are damned if you do and you are damned if you do not because you do not have the resource people or you do not have the resources.

So I think it is important that, as a government, we need to start to find ways of taking down those barriers between those two groups and have them work in conjunction with each other, instead of against each other, or participating like it is a horse race, where you are trying to get across the finish line, or resource dollars, before the other guy does.

So, as a department, I would like to know if you have looked at the whole area ensuring that the front-line workers and staff are working in conjunction with other providers within the communities and also within the government?

You seem to be doing a lot of studies and research and reports going out to different interest groups, but I do not see anything coming back from the aboriginal community.

I am just wondering, is there a particular reason that you are not working closer with the aboriginal community, tribal councils, agencies that are out there? Is that because this government feels that since we are not funding them, we do not have to deal with them? It is an Ottawa problem, not a Northwest Territories problem?

Could the Minister tell me, why exactly does there seem to be a lack of aboriginal input into your resources and studies that are going on today?