Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank all the guests and witnesses for coming today. This is excellent. I wish we had more time to delve into the issues.
I'll keep my comments brief. First, I need to just say, on the day care issue, under the program that was offered by the previous government, there were no day care spaces created, and in rural areas there would be no impact at all in the vast majority of cases. If we accept the argument that the first nations people don't pay as much in taxes, or your comments along those lines, or are not in as high a taxable income range, it suggests then that the $1,200 benefit will be fully beneficial to the recipients because they won't be taxed on that. So certainly $1,200 is a lot better than nothing. I am pleased that $1,200 benefit will have an impact on first nations parents and children.
As a Manitoban, I was really struck by what my colleague Mr. Batters raised, and yourselves, in regard to the cost of whiskey being the same in Churchill as it is in Winnipeg. Since you have raised issues of the social challenges that exist in all communities in the north, I wonder if it would be helpful to have the cost of alcohol in remote areas reflect the actual market price, and inversely, have food somehow subsidized or transportation arrangements organized in such a way as to make the cost of food more affordable. It seems that we have a plan for alcohol in this regard, but we can't get it right for all the stuff we want people to have--nutritious food.
I wonder if the witnesses could comment on that two-pronged approach question: the alcohol floating price, and getting affordable, nutritious food to the people who need it.