I'll try to be very precise in answering the many questions that the member raised. With respect to the issue of an ombudsman, we have no plans to establish that position.
The increase in transfers to the provinces and territories, at $40 billion, is not a decrease. There are no cuts to health transfers to the provinces and territories. I was in the health care system, as finance minister for Nunavut, when the Liberals cut transfers. The $40-billion increase is not a decrease.
In regard to the areas of front line and whatnot, every effort that we took in Health Canada was to not cut front line health care services. On the reductions in programs with organizations, those organizations do not deliver front line health care services.
In terms of the areas of prevention, we're doing a lot of great things through the Public Health Agency of Canada. At the federal, provincial and territorial health ministers meetings in Newfoundland two years ago, the first declaration was signed in this country that starts to concentrate its targets and efforts in relation to chronic disease prevention.
As well, in the next year we'll be reporting on those through a conference in Ottawa. We'll be bringing in not only governments but the private sector, in their efforts to reduce chronic disease in Canada. This is the first of its kind in Canada, and it was our government's efforts to mitigate some of the preventable illnesses we're seeing in our hospitals.
Equally important is to keep people from getting ill in the first place. Much of the work we're doing is to tackle areas where we're trying to prevent illness, for example, tobacco use, obesity prevention, injury prevention in a number of physical activities, and to stress the importance of that in our health care system. Many of the investments we're making are targeting that, and at the same time we're protecting the transfers to the provinces and the territories.