I will be very brief, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, members of the committee, it is a pleasure to be here to discuss supplementary estimates (C) for the budget year that's soon coming to a close.
This year was an eventful one in terms of health legislation, health research and health promotion. The minister will discuss these subjects more closely when she appears before the committee later this month.
As you know, the department I represent delivers a number of critical programs and services to Canadians, and does so based on its mission of helping Canadians to maintain and improve their health.
I'm now going to turn my attention directly to supplementary estimates (C).
For Health Canada, these estimates represent a net decrease of $818,000 in the 2010-11 supplementary estimates (C), which reduces our total budget from $3.756 billion to $3.755 billion for the current fiscal year.
I'm not going to go through every one of the major items contributing to this decrease, but they include a transfer of $706,000 to Indian Affairs and Northern Development.
These funds are destined to support self-governing Yukon first nations as they assume direct responsibility for the delivery of certain health programs and services. Funding will support them to administer health promotion programming related to diabetes, youth suicide prevention, the anti-drug strategy, and maternal and child health. These are services that previously had been funded and provided directly by Health Canada, and they'll now be provided by the self-governing first nations. This is in keeping with our general policy of transferring relevant departmental funding following the finalization of self-governing agreements.
The other significant transfer for us is the transfer of $200,000 to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. This was proposed to be transferred to CIHR to help establish a research chair for autism.
Both of those transfers are fulfilling commitments made in recent years to making long-term improvements to health care.
With respect to autism, the transferred funds will be used to establish a research chair to focus research on this condition.
With reference to the Yukon first nations programs, this too is a part of a long-term commitment to give first nations greater control over the delivery of their own health services. This is based on the sound principle that first nations have the best understanding of the needs of their communities.
Mr. Chair, members of the committee, I hope this gives everyone a better snapshot of Health Canada's supplementary estimates (C).
Thank you for this opportunity. We will be pleased to answer any questions you might have.