David Ramsay

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move to report progress.

---Carried

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is very easy to criticize. I like to be critical of the government from time to time, but I also want to give my suggestions to government and a suggestion, Mr. Speaker, if I could give that to the Minister, would be to look at the authorities and change the way they operate. Take away the management aspect. Make them advisory boards, if anything, and, to me, if you are looking for efficiencies, that is where you are going to find it. It doesn’t make any sense to have eight different authorities in the Territories with 42,000 people in it. If you are looking for...

I thank the Minister for that. I think that’s the right approach and we should be pursuing that, but how are we going to get there? I’ve been here seven years and the Minister’s been here longer than that -- 12 years or 11 -- and these are problems that have been ongoing. They’ve been a problem since the day I got here. I want to believe what the Minister is saying, but how is she sure that come next year when Members go into the business plans, is she saying that the health budget is going to be increased by 10 percent, and where is that money supposed to come from, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a number of questions and perhaps I’ll get on the list again and hopefully get another set of questions. I’d like to ask the Minister, if we’re part of the agreement already, are we today bulk purchasing with the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, Mr. Speaker? Is that true? Thank you.

I thank the Minister for that. I guess, you know, she said she’s leading the way on developing partnerships with western provinces on bulk purchasing of medical supplies and equipment. Last summer the governments of British Columbia and Alberta signed an agreement to co-purchase health care equipment. Just recently there was another agreement signed by the provinces of Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan on bulk purchasing medical supplies and equipment. Where was the Government of the Northwest Territories, Mr. Speaker? Where was the Minister when it came time to sit down at the table...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to just comment briefly on this. I want to start off by thanking the NWT Tourism and the board. They were in favour of Bill 9 and the deletion of the Tourist Deposit Assurance Program.

Given what’s happened to the barren-ground caribou outfitters in the Northwest Territories, I think the government’s got some bigger issues on its plate that it’s going to have to deal with. In the money that is being thrown at this assurance program, and it’s over $300,000, Mr. Chairman, that’s money that could be better spent looking at programming and ways to keep what operators...

Just one other question. When we purchased SAM, how come we didn’t buy something that would incorporate contract management inside of SAM and why are we spending $1 million a year later? We should have been ensured that SAM was going to cover off the needs of the government that we required. Obviously it didn’t and we’re spending $1 million a year later, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. So maybe we weren’t shopping at the right store or with the right company. There were a lot of discussions around who we ended up doing business with and maybe there was another model out there, Mr. Chairman...

So maybe the Minister can commit that in fact the contract registry, BIP monitoring and the efforts that ITI are going to be migrated over to the Department of Finance and managed under this new $1 million upgrade. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hope that the Minister has listened. Again, she is the Minister of Health and Social Services. If anybody is going to defend the interests of the people in regard to health and social services here in the Northwest Territories, it’s her. It’s not her staff. It’s not the bureaucrats in the department. It’s the Minister, Mr. Speaker. I’d like, again, some assurances from the Minister that she is going to take more of a leadership role in being vocal about what those interests are for the residents in the Northwest Territories. Not her deputy minister, not the senior...

Mr. Speaker, I think the Minister is missing my point. The CEO can write a letter and you can rest assured that if there is a decision by the province of Saskatchewan or the province of British Columbia that impacted the province of Alberta, their Ministers would be up publicly decreeing what that decision was and the impacts it would have on the citizens of Alberta. Our Minister was nowhere to be found when it came to defending the interests of the people of the Northwest Territories and the closure of that airport. That is very obvious, Mr. Speaker.

Now I’m trying to find some comfort in that...