Daryl Dolynny

I’ll accept that offer from the Minister. The number, aside in terms of what that percentage is, is notwithstanding and we’ll get that number later as promised. The question is we know that there’s a cost to no-show rates. What is the department doing specifically to the speciality clinics in order to mitigate and lessen the burden on our health care system on narrowing the gap of no-show rates?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, through you and with your assistance here, I’d like to point out in the gallery someone I’ve worked with earlier in 2014, Mr. Kevin Hynes who is the president of the Yellowknife Firefighters Association, here for Bill 45. Thank you.

I’ll take the Minister up on his offer there.

Now, with respect to that service delivery, as indicated earlier, there was some discrepancy in terms of when these nurses were available on call. There were hurdles in our system, and the Minister is very much aware of this. It happened to one of my residents here, where these nurses are basically Monday to Friday, nine to five, and we all know that emergencies and medevacs are 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Has the department mitigated that philosophy of just a Monday to Friday availability of service and do we have this now, indeed, as a 24...

We know that the Department of Health has, under contract, nursing care or, I guess, nursing helper services in some of the jurisdictions down south, especially at the University of Alberta Hospital, where these individuals help patients who are brought down from the Northwest Territories who are in need of help to explain what’s happening to them, making sure that they’re coordinated with loved ones, et cetera. Where does that budget fit into here with respect to that service we provide?

Thank you. Just as a question because it sounds like there is some work happening behind the scenes with ECE. How much of this budget is going to be allocated to translation services specifically for technology enhancements or changes so that we can use very app-friendly devices and applications? What is the budget, where is it in our main estimates and how much is it?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m pleased to see that the French language services. We finally have allocations in many of our departments. It’s good to see that we’re living up to our legal obligation in Canada. That said, I know through a lot of reporting and a lot of feedback we’ve received over the years where we talk about where our policies fail, where our processes don’t meet the expectations of our clients, barriers to patients, especially accessing services quickly and efficiently and people who fall through the cracks. These were terminologies that were very widespread in a lot of system...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Minister and deputy minister’s response. So it appears that we’re going to have more of a hybrid year, given the fact that some indicators will be available, some aren’t. Now I know how CIHI works and how they report. They report it as system-wide indicators and they’ll actually do facility indicators such as the Stanton Hospital. The differential information, that is available publicly. So if I wanted to gauge how well my hospital was versus the territory. I’m certain these parameters would be available for the public and that’s, I guess, the purpose...

I think this also lends to the overall question that I think myself as a Member has in terms of how this new layout looks and, again, the details behind this layout. I’m going to ask, at a point in time, if the Minister would commit to giving us more of a breakdown so we can actually understand some of these large $60 million, $15 million, what they are all encompassing. Again, because of the fairly large change in format here, would the Minister commit to providing that breakdown for committee once the main estimates are completed?

Thank you, Madam Chair. We know very well that with this activity there have been some changes with respect to how this has been arranged for this year, and I know the director is part of that and a responsibility of more the broad system of planning. With that, we know that before committee, and I know we’re talking about the new governance model where we should hope to streamline a lot of our administrative components throughout our authorities and, as mentioned in the House by the Minister, there may not be perceived savings. So, I guess, to the first question.

Will we not at least see some...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do appreciate the rationale. Just from an optics point of view you can imagine the dismay, as a committee member who fights very hard, tooth and claw, for every dollar. When I see a number regress, we need to find clarification.

In that same breath, my question is if this is indeed monies that were put aside for outside contributions in the realm of mental health and addictions. We know that Nats’ejee K’eh in its operating years was receiving about $2 million a year for mental health and addictions programs. If I look at the combined number here for outside investment...