Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services, and I’d like to look at a consultation process following up on my questions on Monday. When I asked the Minister why the NWT Pharmaceutical Association’s offer of advice and AGM appearance to the department was not taken up, the Minister replied saying she didn’t invite Mr. Dolynny’s offered input because he was not the current association president, and that five-day notice of the AGM was too short for her staff to make the meeting. I’ve gathered information from the association which paints quite a...

Health care should be on the top of that list. Many have said they would even pay more tax to ensure coverage of everyone and to avoid co-payments when they are sick, elderly, and less able to pay. Let’s listen to what our employers and the taxpayers say and make fair health care for all priority number one. The public response has been clear, expressed eloquently through public submissions and beautifully captured by the Elders Parliament resolutions supporting supplementary health benefits for everyone.

Mr. Speaker, much of supplementary so-called health care is, in reality, basic health care...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, your committee would like to report progress. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do have a final question, and I just want to preface by saying I think the Minister and Cabinet must surely be aware that the answers we’re hearing are totally inadequate and the main point behind all of this discussion today is that we’re not there yet. We need to go back to the drawing board on this. The Members are speaking and the public has spoken.

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell me, given the complexity and administrative challenges we can expect with the current proposals, given that people that are covered by third-party insurance may very well drop it under...

I have other beliefs on what the cost of the system will be and I think the Minister is aware of those. The current system provides equal coverage, full coverage to both Metis, seniors and non-aboriginal seniors. Under the new proposals, I’ve heard from the Minister that will no longer be so. In fact, we will no longer give full coverage to non-aboriginal seniors. Can the Minister explain to me how that can possibly be seen as not being divisive, a racially divisive policy? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, there’s quite a disagreement both from the public and the Members here on the Minister’s perspectives on this. The Minister continually refers that we follow a system that’s a commonly used model in other parts of the country and so on. We’re not interested in that. We want to develop a specific system for the North.

Mr. Speaker, when I asked whether an analysis of the cost of administration had been made, the Minister replied, according to Hansard, “we will be going for RFP to find a service provider such as Blue Cross or any other insurance company. They are...

Thank you. Again the Minister has refused to answer the question. Why did she not respond favourably to the stakeholders panel she put together for inclusion of the Pharmaceutical Association? I also understand now about the five-day notice the department had to participate the in the Pharmaceutical Association’s AGM. The association actually invited the department quite early on in a timely way, but the department was very slow to reply. By the time the reply was received by the association office, only five days remained for the by then scheduled AGM, apparently a time too short for the...

Mr. Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to welcome my mother, Barbara Bromley, to the House, and her lifelong friend, of course, Ruth Spence. I would also like to recognize David Gilday, a resident of Weledeh.

Thank you. The Minister had mentioned the wait times and wait time standards, per se. We don’t have such standards. That seems odd to me and a slippery slope. If we don’t have standards, of course we’re going to continue to allow those to slip and slide without correcting them, and obviously they need correcting. So I’m hoping the Minister will actually put those standards in place so we can prevent that.

I’ve repeatedly asked the Minister to say whether analysis is being completed on the increased cost of administering a co-payment system, and this information has never been supplied. I’ve...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. The Minister reported on statistics yesterday, in response to oral questions, that outlined some really horrible wait times for diagnostic and specialist medical services. She did report that our volume of services has gone up. I’m happy to see that, but that still leaves too many people waiting. She made a reference to our wait times being the same as down south. Again, I want to discourage in this, as well as in the supp health question, trying to be the same as the rest of Canada. We expect better...