David Ramsay

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.

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...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to speak again about the provision of health services and the changing landscape of those services provided to NWT residents in Alberta.

Back in May I asked the Minister of Health and Social Services whether or not she had written a letter to the Government of Alberta or the City of Edmonton outlining our government’s concern over the impending closure of the City Centre Airport in Edmonton. She said, yes, we have written letters. To make a long story short, it took over two months to get a response from the Minister. That was only after she was threatened...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just getting back to the discussion we had earlier on whether or not either one of the Fort Smith or Hay River centres is going to be deemed to be the regional centre. It was a bit confusing for me. Are there not requirements like staffing and programming levels in a community that would suggest you spend $28 million there? If that is the case, maybe the Minister has stats or figures on what the staffing level is at the facility in Hay River and the one at Fort Smith.

I’m just wondering -- I was listening to the Minister’s response -- what region does she consider Fort Smith to be in. If they’re building up or maintaining the same level of service as the facility in Hay River, they’re in the same region the last time I looked at a map. They’re pretty close together. About an hour and a half to two hours on the highway. Is the intention of the facility in Fort Smith to service any communities in northern Alberta? What are we doing there?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for that. I guess I haven’t been here as long as I have been, seven years. I’m very sceptical when it comes to any Minister of Health and Social Services standing up in this House saying that anything is going to happen. I’ve heard it from former Ministers, I’ve heard it from this Minister. The bottom line, Mr. Speaker, is nothing has happened and I know the Minister has embarked on this Foundation for Change and I wish her well in that and I hope that does answer some questions, but I believe wholeheartedly that it’s a system-wide fix that we need...