Thank you.
A lot of the money from 2004 is flowing, but one of the challenges is that just as it's starting to flow, it is almost done, because the last year is 2009-10. For example, for the aboriginal health transition fund, which was $200,000--and I'll tell you about the Inuit share of it--the first part of that money, a significant portion of it, flowed March 12. We have less than three years to spend five years' worth of funding. There's been some effect, but people are already starting to worry about what they're going to do with it in the future.
As far as the number of resources dedicated to mental health goes--$65 million over five years for suicide prevention for first nations and Inuit--that doesn't address anywhere near the need for suicide prevention, mental health counselling, and mental health supports.
The jurisdictional issues that people have been talking about between provinces and the federal government tend to be escalated in the Inuit communities. That's why in my presentation I talked about one of the benefits we have being improved relationships, but there's still a long way to go.
Someone asked previously what we can do and what kind of recommendations we should focus on. Other people around the table have mentioned that health promotion and disease prevention are of the utmost importance. If 85% of a population is hungry and malnourished or has nutritional deficits, then it's very difficult for them to be healthy. For Inuit populations specifically, they are the only group we can find for which life expectancy is decreasing. Canadian life expectancy is increasing, but the Inuit population across Canada has the same life expectancy Canadians had in 1940.
We need urgent and emergent recognition of this issue. It's difficult for people to contribute to health human resources if they're not healthy enough to make it through school or to be contributing as they could be.