You are asking a very difficult question that's really of a broader nature in terms of the responsibilities of Health Canada and this department: the jurisdictional issue of who is doing what. This is a dilemma that has been faced by both of our departments. What we have been trying to do, though, wherever we could, say, for instance, when we deal with the social determinants of health, is to try to engage both departments in talking about the issues. Very much like the poverty rate of children, for instance—we have three out of five aboriginal children under six who are living in poverty, and that's a social issue, but in the meantime it goes directly to the health issue of these children—this is where there has been very much a concerted effort by both departments to engage at the working level to say yes, we have jurisdictional differences here, but how do we work together to try to improve the social determinants of health?
Wherever opportunities arise to do that, it is one of the thrusts we try to make. It is not only on the health side, but in all social program areas—for instance, in youth suicide, which is in some ways a Department of Health issue, but it's an Indian Affairs issue as well. What we have done is engage the appropriate departments, Health Canada and us, to ask how we will resolve this issue.
It's very much an ongoing discussion. Then it's a question of coordinating it, for instance, with the new tax credit we're talking about. Again, a concerted effort is being made, but there definitely has to be more coordination of the appropriate departments to address this, because the issue of childhood social and health problems somehow at times gets compartmentalized because of program authorities and program funding. What we're trying to do is to ask how to over-layer that and work in partnership.
Definitely this has been very much a concern of ours.