The Minister and I have discussed the philosophy before and I have to disagree with him. I’m not so sure that funding to an unrealistic level is going to provide any more accountability than funding to a realistic level and then forcing our staff to keep to that expenditure limit.

I don’t see much accountability when before us sits a supplementary appropriation for $3.6 million for last year, $3.2 million anticipated for this year. I don’t really see how this is providing accountability in this particular aspect of our Supplementary Health Program expenditures.

I did want to ask another question. I note in the background information that we were given that we spend money on travel but we also recoup money from several places. I noted that we do recoup money from NIHB, which is aboriginal health benefits through the federal government. The differential between the revenue that we get and the expenditures we make is pretty huge, it’s about $3 million or $4 million, if I recall correctly.

I’ve often heard it said that the NIHB program does not cost this government any money and I guess I would like to know from the Minister why we have revenues of some $3 million and expenditures of some $7 million for NIHB travel.