Daryl Dolynny

Okay, so let me ask the question another way. Is the Government of Nunavut current for all billings for their patient services here in the Northwest Territories, and has that been accounted for should there have been any historical shortfalls from year to year?

So on page 8-9, these are revenues. Where are these revenues coming from for the reciprocal billing for services for Nunavut patients? Thank you.

Just to give the Minister a little clue on Peter Pan, it’s pixie dust, not fairy dust.

Can the Minister clearly indicate what savings were realized by using this FMB policy in the past for years? In other words, what total dollars were saved from 2010-2011, from 2011-2012 and from 2012-2013 by initiating this Passive Restraint Policy?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I want to talk about two words and those words are...not Highway 7…

---Laughter

…passive restraint. I am not referring to a self-locking seatbelt but rather some very slick language used by our Finance department.

So, before we can get to passive restraint, we have to understand a bit of the context. For starters, if you have not noticed, many Regular Members are concerned at the number of job vacancies facing this government, and if you are from a small community, you should be paying attention.

Yet other Members have asked how the dormant or inactive jobs continue...

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. General comments. Okay, we’ll allow the Minister an opportunity to reply. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Moving on with general comments, I have Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Moving on with general comments, I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d like to welcome the Department of Health and Social Services here today. We’ve got a fairly daunting task before us here in the next day or two. I’m hoping to try to evaluate the current budget here for the Department of Health and Social Services. I did have a chance to read the Minister’s opening remarks again, and obviously, I had a chance to read one of his statements earlier today on the health and social services system. So I’ll try to amalgamate both here today in kind of a general overview at a high level here.

I think we are in a ripe position to reposition...

The only sound I am hearing on this side of the House is tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.

Clearly the Minister is fine with sharing his numbers with the committee, but somehow 24 hours later he has no idea and has nothing to present to the people of the NWT, which I think is quite shameful.

Given our questionable financial situation in the current budget, where we continue to have a number of funded, dormant, inactive positions and a miscalculation of our taxation revenues, can the Minister indicate if the Financial Management Board is initiating any passive restraint policies in its 2014-2015...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I spoke about the term “passive restraint” and the situation we are faced within our financial debt wall. The Financial Management Board Passive Restraint Policy is used in times of trying to find savings within operational spending and usually around job positions and wage dollars, or at least this is how it has been presented to Members of the House.

The duty of a Regular Member is to protect the public purse, and with nothing ever tabled in this House on this policy, it is imperative that we take a moment today and ask some probing questions for the...