Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank the witnesses for being here, many of whom I've gotten to know, particularly Natan. I've gotten to know him over the last few years for sure, so welcome.
This is an important study. I know that whenever the government is dealing with health care and the intrusion...not necessarily intrusion but the caretaking of individual lives, the government must tread carefully. As we have seen with the residential schools situation in the past, here we are again with a large government institution that is trying to manage the day-to-day lives of individuals. I want to thank the witnesses for their testimony on this important topic.
One of the things I know, coming from northern Alberta and representing 14 first nations, is that access to health care is a big challenge, and I want to commend the individual nations for.... They all have a system of transport.
I'll start with Natan, in particular. How does getting to health care facilities in his region work? Is that a challenge? Are there areas that need to be worked on around that?
I know [Technical difficulty—Editor] in northern Alberta, there are these big white Ford vans. The ones I'm thinking of, in particular, have “Driftpile medical transport” written on the side of the vans, and I see them regularly coming through Barrhead, my hometown, bringing folks to their health care appointments. It's not just to the hospital. They can get an ambulance for that, but the vans bring them to their everyday medical appointments.
Natan, I'm wondering if you could elaborate on how that works in your neck of the woods.