David Ramsay

Mr. Speaker, again, I do thank the Minister for that response. The one thing I didn’t hear in her response was whether or not the government’s going to ask itself and us the hard question, and that is whether or not we can afford to maintain having several authorities across the Northwest Territories delivering health and social services for our people and whether that current governance structure is sustainable going forward. That’s a hard question and I’d like to ask the Minister is that going to be part of the discussions with senior management and the government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to continue with some questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services related to the other questions that I had for her. The Minister spoke earlier of all the good things that under her watch the department has been doing. If the Minister has been addressing the root causes of these deficits over her three-year reign as Health Minister, like the underfunding, the unfunded positions, the growing costs for medical supplies and equipment, billing issues, unwieldy accounts receivables, and governance structure, then why do the deficits continue to spiral...

I’m having trouble understanding who the Minister signed the MOU with if these other provinces already have deals worked out with themselves. When is the Government of the Northwest Territories going to actively get involved and get in on a bulk purchasing plan with our neighbours to the south? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions again today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services, getting back to my Member’s statement.

I talked earlier about the growing deficits at both Stanton authority and other authorities around the Territories. Mr. Speaker, around this country, other provinces and territories are taking quite seriously the growing cost to deliver and provide health care services to their residents, and I just do not see the determination or the effort being put forward by our government when it comes to addressing these ever-growing costs. In fact, the way we manage...

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

---Carried

Mr. Speaker, I think the Minister is missing my point. My point is that the Minister was nowhere to be found during this discussion on the closure of that airport. There was no public statement issued by this government whatsoever, and I think that was the wrong thing to do, Mr. Speaker. Like I said, our responsibilities are to the people of the Northwest Territories and we have to make sure that our interests are known, respected and accounted for at every table. I don’t think we should be going down there and telling them how they should develop their plans, but every interest of the people...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to follow up with my colleagues. Mr. Menicoche and Mr. Hawkins had questions to the Minister of Health earlier and I want to follow up on that.

I find it very interesting that the Minister can stand up here in the House time and time again and say how very, very important this issue is and how deeply involved her and the government are when the decision to close the Edmonton City Centre Airport was made without any vocal outcry from our government or from our Minister.

Mr. Speaker, this happened when people in our communities were coming to us and saying, what is...

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.