Mr. Chair, I would like to focus on the money now, in that it seems disappointing, with the aging demographics and the challenges that the summary information shows, that by 2010-2011 the ministry will have less money than they will have this year.
I don't know how one explains that the budget for the whole health portfolio goes down, but particularly in terms of the main estimates for the Public Health Agency that it would go down from $658.3 million to $590.5 million. I think it is extraordinary that in things like health promotion, the planned spending can go down to $197 million by 2010. The money for public health capacity goes down, the money for infectious disease goes down. Emergency preparedness is the only thing that seems to stay. Is that not embarrassing?
And the one thing I'm sure the minister expected us to ask, and which every day we're being asked by community organizations: what is going to be the funding on HIV/AIDS? I wonder if the minister would like to tell me how many new HIV/AIDS infections there are per year and how he can justify cutting community funding and not even letting them know how much money they will have so they are able to plan.
These organizations want long-term, medium-term.... They don't even know the short-term funding now, and it's not clear in the estimates. I'd like to know whether the money for the vaccine initiative has been used. And when was the last time you met with the ministerial council on HIV/AIDS in terms of what I think is their concern?
So the community is furious, as you know. They don't know what to spend, and yet cases of HIV/AIDS are still climbing in this country.