The rates of cardiovascular disease among indigenous populations are twice what they are in the average population, as you well know. It's a major priority for Heart and Stroke.
In communities where there's no access to fresh water, you probably know that people say an excise tax will be a real issue. Let's remember that some of the bottling companies that bottle soda pop also sell water. For the same volume, if you think of a bottle of Dasani water or the bottle of Coca-Cola, the bottle of Dasani water on reserve will be 30% more expensive than the bottle of pop. The cost base is actually cheaper for the Coca-Cola because there's added sugar and syrup in it and the bottle of water is just water.
The excise tax would not only invite switching to the bottle of water, which is today more expensive, so it reinforces the pattern about which you speak, but I think the most important thing again is that the fund that would be created would provide resources to improve programs, such as the programs that allow northern indigenous communities to have better access to better food.
This has to be a priority and this is the opportunity that's available in the excise tax, which would make it a priority to actually repair the situation that you illustrate. I share with you in making that an urgent priority through the healthy fund that would be created by the excise tax.