Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I wanted to ask some questions about the medical travel benefits. This is something that I know has come up quite a bit over the course of the term, and my understanding is this is quite common. And the focus of the questions largely have been around the amount that is offered to residents when it comes to medical travel, especially with the -- sorry, in especially in relation to per diems for the cost for food and the cost for accommodations.
One of the issues that has come up and was highlighted was specific to the -- or the additional cost of somebody bringing kids into Yellowknife for the purposes of -- for birthing purposes.
Somebody might not have child care in their home community, and they might need to bring their kids with them and are unable -- if they bring their kids with them, they -- it is considered more than one escort. Each child is considered an escort. And what ends up happening is they're denied government-funded lodging and they have to go and find their own place to stay. And so if they find themselves in a hotel situation, they're only reimbursed for the $50 and this is not representative of what it actually costs a family to stay in a hotel.
The concern that's been raised to me is this ends up being not a culturally safe policy. And a lot of people might be in a situation where they just -- because of their own personal histories don't feel comfortable leaving their children with someone else and need to bring their children with them to Yellowknife or wherever they are having children. So I'm wondering if while this amount of money is, you know, $5,000 -- or 5,000, geesh, $5 million less than what the department would like to see, is there an intent to revise some of the policy work around medical travel to make it more culturally safe for all residents of the territory? Thank you.