Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It is my turn to welcome you. Having the opportunity to meet all of you together is quite special. The entire, or almost entire, range of the whole health network is represented here today.
As much as I could, I have read your documents. I think that the Health Action Lobby was the only one to send us any. I was able to skim through the others. First, as far as the handling and analysis of needs is concerned, I notice that there is little mention of prevention. I may be mistaken, but that is what caught my attention.
Then, you quite rightly rank in first place the problem of numbers of workers. However, there does not seem to me to be any analysis of what caused this problem. Knowing some of the causes might help to guide us better in the future.
Furthermore, the financial participation of the Canadian government, in terms of support to the provinces for health, has fallen by almost 10% over the past 15 years. You will agree that health and social services are the responsibility of the provinces. Which leads me to my second question.
Have you considered this aspect with the provinces, either with your associations or with the provincial corporations? I assume that you have done so. I would like to know what their thoughts are.
Finally, you seem very concerned about the idea that there should be supervision, a Canadian overview with regard to management of health and social services. I remind you that this is a provincial responsibility. Nevertheless, if the basic assumption is made that some elements should be handled by the federal government, is that a guarantee of success? We may think, for example, of the monumental failure of the management of the aboriginal reserves by the Canadian government. And this is a federal jurisdiction.
I come back to my first point, namely prevention. Out of 720 aboriginal communities, over 280 do not have drinking water.
You say that a Canadian agency should be created, but do you take into account the fact that, in terms of distribution of resources, analysis and perspectives, what the Canadian government had to manage proved to be a failure as far as health is concerned?