Madam Chair, I can respond to Dr. Bennett's question with respect to the aboriginal health human resources initiative and the $100 million that was agreed to by Parliament for this initiative.
This initiative was intended to achieve four specific targets: doubling the number of first nations, Inuit, and Métis students receiving bursaries; doubling the number of health professionals over 10 years; increasing the number of certified health directors by one-third; and increasing by 50% the number of post-secondary institutions with aboriginal health student report programs.
The program has two more years to run. Up to the end of the last fiscal year, we'd spent approximately $36 million. We're in the middle of a review, Dr. Bennett, that will show us where we are. I can tell you that with respect to the bursaries and scholarships, we can actually show that there's been a sixfold increase in bursaries and scholarships since 2003-04. Anecdotally, there has been a significant increase in the number of medical schools and nursing schools that have particular programs to support aboriginal students.
With respect to health directors, we've had a successful meeting of the health directors who manage first nations clinics and medical services. They're organizing themselves. They're establishing professional practice standards, and I think we will see significant progress on that.
We should have a report at the end of this fiscal year, which will give you more specific details of what we've accomplished.
Thank you.