Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Bonjour, tout le monde.
Thank you very much for the invitation to be here today.
I am very pleased to be here today. With me are Germain Tremblay, Acting Chief Financial Officer of Health Canada, and other senior department officials.
By way of introduction, this is my first appearance before you in the role of deputy minister of health, and I just felt I should mention that while I am new to this position and feel very privileged to be here, I'm not new to the health field. I've had the great privilege of serving in the health and health care policy fields for approximately 20 years, most recently as the president and the CEO of the Canadian Institute for Health Information, but previously as the deputy minister of health for the Province of Saskatchewan. It is a great pleasure for me now to continue in the health field as the deputy minister of Health Canada.
The minister appeared before you on March 16 to discuss the main estimates of the health portfolio. At that time, Health Canada requested and subsequently received a net increase of $50.7 million in the 2010–11 main estimates.
Specifically, those investments supplemented first nations and Inuit health services and the food and consumer safety action plan--