Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for coming today.
I am going to try my best to wrap up in three or four minutes, because I know the chair has a question for you.
I have a couple of friendship centres, obviously, in the great Kenora riding. These friendship centres are small, but important. I'm always struck by the sense of identity that people coming off reserve have with the facilities. To that end, I have two comments, and maybe one is more of a question, which I'll put to you in a moment.
With respect to some of the program funding that you get, as the former parliamentary secretary in Canadian Heritage, I came to understand that there were a number of really good reasons why program funding comes through them. I speak more of the aboriginal urban youth funding cultural connections--some definite connections there.
My colleague Anita has raised a good line of inquiry. I've always felt that part of the problem, whether it's federal, provincial, municipal, or specific program funding, is that it seems to be a bit fractured. There is a concern for folks leaving communities where there are, in fact, some rather stealth programs, particularly around maternal child health, early childhood development, and aboriginal diabetes initiatives--which work there, but aren't working quite as well as we'd like. Obviously, that flows out of Health Canada, and I have certainly thought that a more coordinated effort across the different departments might be a useful way of looking at some of the issues around.... And it's not necessarily, Mr. Cyr, a pure question of resources; it's more identifying priorities. That's the comment.
The second part of my question is a bit more focused. One of the things that works at the friendship centre in Red Lake is that they have a great facility that folks can identify with when we offer certain kinds of training, for example, for folks on reserve. In fact, a number of organizations, including the gold companies in the area, have come to understand that, and to increase the level of engagement they've had forums at the friendship centre.
These represent, in my view, additional sources of revenue. How closely, at the executive and national levels, do you work to foster that? I think we've heard through other lines of questioning that there's concern about government funding, perhaps federal, provincial, and municipal. But in terms of almost a strategic business unit, what kind of work are you doing to optimize, if you will, what I think is a great opportunity? Because when we're looking at levels of engagement from first nations communities, there tends to be more success with those activities that seem to be more private in nature when they're hosted there.
