Mr. Chair, first of all let me reiterate what the hon. member has just said and what the Prime Minister said. There is no question that we have, as a society and as government, not done a very good job of aboriginal health. We have not done a very good job on aboriginal issues generally.
It is important. That is why the Prime Minister held a round table summit with aboriginal leaders in April this year and then tasked us, different ministers of education, health and other sectors, to hold sectoral table discussions on these issues. I am pleased to say that the discussion on health has already taken place in Ottawa with about a hundred experts and aboriginal leaders coming together to discuss these issues.
The $700 million is in addition to the $1.6 billion the hon. member just referred to. This is over the next five years. Out of that, $200 million would enable governments and aboriginal communities to better integrate and adapt health services with other systems. It is important that we do that.
The next $100 million would assist in the training of aboriginal human health resources to improve recruitment of aboriginal health care workers, adapt health curricula, and improve retention of health workers.
The remaining $400 million is for upstream investments with respect to diseases such as diabetes, issues such as suicide, and the promotion of health among the aboriginal people of Canada.
It is important that we do this right. That is why the health ministers of Canada got together three or four weeks ago and tasked George Smitherman, the minister of health from Ontario, and myself to co-chair the health ministers and work with the co-chairs of the aboriginal ministers, and develop a blueprint as to how we can more effectively utilize the resources that are available within that $700 million.