Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right; the program is a program that is offered by the federal government. We administer it on their behalf to make it easier for Northwest Territories residents to access the program, but the rules of the program do not allow M‚tis people to access the program. It is not just the M‚tis people that have had problems with it. We have a waiting list. There are more than 20 status people who, this year, are not getting served by the program because the program ran out of money so early in the year.

Mr. Speaker, I have written to the federal Minister on numerous occasions requesting that they give us some consideration for a change in the program. But to date, the federal government has refused to do that.