Health committee  Thank you for the question. I am going to ask Ms. Boudreau. I am going to ask her whether she can explain the difference between the figures from the Library of Parliament researchers and hers.

Health committee  Maybe I can just start, Madam Chair. I would be happy to bring Dr. Gully back. Dr. Gully is with us not just for H1N1 but is providing public health advice generally to first nations and Inuit health branch. Obviously we'd be happy to find an appropriate time to explore that issue.

Health committee  Okay.

Health committee  Madam Chair, I will attempt to answer this question. First off, I must say that the increase in resources allocated to this board is due to an increase in the workload. The workload has changed considerably over the last few years. For quite a long time, most regulations were not challenged, but recently we have noticed that there has been an increase in the number of investigations being challenged.

Health committee  As you know, CIHR is a separate agency within the portfolio. They have their own relationship with the minister, and I in fact did not give advice on that appointment.

Health committee  It's “Mr.” Rosenberg.

Health committee  No. I don't know that I can answer the question in the way that you put it with respect to a specific amount of money. I would reiterate that what we are doing is putting in place a series of management improvements. In the answer I gave to the last question, the rather rapid answer, I went through some of them.

Health committee  The department is making its best efforts to do that. We are constantly reviewing it. It is certainly our intention to get as close to that as possible.

Health committee  Thank you for the question. There has been a lot of work done on first nations. Importantly, we wanted to make sure that we actually recognized that specific responsibility that Health Canada has to provide health services to first nations. So we did an important organizational thing, which was to bring in an incident commander, Dr.

Health committee  I'll try to answer. These are supplementary estimates (C). We're not looking at the budget now. I would note for the record that last year's budget, budget 2009, did provide $440 million over two years for first nations and Inuit health programs and first nations health facilities and infrastructure.

Health committee  We are working with the provinces on health human resources issues, both with respect to increases in medical school enrollment--there has been some good progress on that--and through the training and integration of international medical graduates. We're working with the provinces through our committee on health human resources on all these fronts.

Health committee  Thank you very much. I'll try to get through as much of that as I can. In terms of the health human resources issues, there has been some progress with respect to pilot projects in support of the recruitment and retention of nurses. Those are already under way. There is an investment of $4.2 million over three years to support the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions on a project entitled “Research to Action: Applied Workplace Solutions for Nurses”.

Health committee  Those are commitments that were made during the election campaign by the party. We are in the middle of the mandate. They are working through health human resources issues. I also understand that this committee will be issuing a report on health human resources, and that will help the government decide, as it moves forward, on what other initiatives it will be putting forward.

Health committee  I can't answer you on the 50 residency positions right now. On repatriation, I do know that there was some information that came out from CIHI last week that actually showed that we are making progress in terms of the numbers of physicians in Canada, year over year, and the number of people in medical school.

Health committee  There is nothing in these supplementary estimates this year on the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board. My recollection was that there had been, after years of steady state operation, a significant shift, or a significant increase, in the number of contested proceedings that were taking place before that board, and that the amount in the estimates was really meant to deal with that workload increase.