Thank you for the question, Mr. Julian. I'll keep it short.
Thank you for inquiring about the Métis. There are over 400,000 of us, so I was hoping somebody would ask a question about the Métis people.
Clearly we're not requiring or asking for the military right now. We're creating our own plans as we move forward. One of the things that should be specified very clearly is that we don't have nursing stations. We do not have clinics in any capacity in our villages. We have zero because we're still caught in this limbo between two jurisdictions in terms of who's responsible. As I said, we still pay billions in taxes but nobody seems to take heed of that and worry about us.
The matter you raised regarding the emergency benefits, it's a matter we should all look at again one more time.
On the $15 million, I'll follow what Perry Bellegarde said. Even in Manitoba right now, we've just decided on our own that for the $7 million we got, we're giving friendship centres half a million in Manitoba. We're also giving homeless shelters resources from our $7 million, on our own. We've opened our own pandemic emergency. We own three construction camps and we've now turned them into hospitalization for potential utilization for major pandemics, not just for us but for all Manitobans in the event they need it.
We also have isolation units we purchased from British Columbia that are coming in. Regarding mobility, we've also contacted the school divisions to see if we can use gymnasiums in the event it does go out of hand in our villages. We have big villages everywhere. We're connected right next door to reserves all across western Canada, but we do not have the same benefits, nor do we have any nurses or clinics.
We're on our own right now, and that's an unfortunate situation. As a Canadian, I feel very disappointed in our country right now on this. Why do the Métis have to stand for themselves always on their own? As I said, nobody hesitates to look for our taxes, both provincially and federally, when it comes to paying taxes.