Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I think this government has to show more leadership and more respect to communities, especially communities that have a history of providing programs and services. If they can provide federal programs and services through Brighter Futures, funding they might have been able to access through the Aboriginal Healing Foundation...these are national programs that communities are administering right now.
Yet, Mr. Chairman, when it comes to government programs, it seems like there is a reluctancy, either within the bureaucracy or even at the regional level, to allow communities to get the resources and get the infrastructure and people in place so that they can run these programs.
A good example is what we see happening with alcohol and drug programs. Even here just outside of Yellowknife you have a drug and alcohol facility, which I believe there is something like two individuals in there from Corrections. Yet the government is paying for the mortgage on that building. Yet in regions, the Inuvik region and other communities, such as the Delta House, which has been shut down, the Tl'oondih Healing Camp has been shut down outside of Fort McPherson because this government has, for some reason, made a decision that those dollars are now allocated to the regional level, but they do not seem to surface in the communities. If they do surface in the communities, the amounts are so minute that you cannot really do anything with them.
I would like to ask the Minister if he can start redirecting those funds from headquarters directly into the communities and skip the regional level with regard to regional health boards, so that we do not have to have the mosaic of people in the regional centre and no one in the communities. I would like to ask the Minister if he will consider looking at programs, proposals, contracts or what not with community organizations that are willing to take on programs and services delivered by this government in the communities?