Glen Abernethy

I'm not 100 percent sure what the Member is asking. Are you asking about the comparability of the Metis health benefits compared to the non-insured health benefits that are offered by the federal government? I'll note that the Member is nodding his head in what appears to be the affirmative, so I will do my best to answer the question. The Metis health benefit mirrors exactly the non-insured health benefits program as far as formulary and coverage levels. I don't know what else the Member wants me to say, other than it is an exact mirror of that so that all the individuals covered get the same...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Given the positions we've put in place and the programs we've put in place, we can fully spend the dollars that are in front of us. We did lapse some money in the previous year, that were the result of that $2.5 million that was allocated to us. We anticipated lapsing some money again this year, as we continue to do our work around the family and community caregivers, and other programs that we are testing and modelling at this point. There is a chance, once we've done that testing, that we'll have to come back for future consideration, future asks, but at this point in...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It seems like a reasonable recommendation. We will endeavour to do that for the next budget that is before the House.

My list shows that our wait times in 2017-2018 for adults was about 47 weeks, and that is non-urgent cases. It is about 40 weeks for [2:09]. If the Member is aware of an individual who has been told that it is going to be over two years, I would suggest that the best way to deal with that is to meet with me and discuss that particular file. I am not prepared to discuss the file of an individual here in this Assembly.

Having said that, Mr. Speaker, we have filled that position in the Beaufort-Delta. That was filled in December. We are only just now fully staffed with the three positions. We are...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As an initial starting point, some of the on-the-land money that we have talked about today is actually intended to be used through Indigenous governments, for on-the-land care, after-care, those types of things. I acknowledge that, obviously, we need to continue to do work in this area. I hear the Member loud and clear. I do note that the draft action plan went to committee last week. We are hoping to have a sit-down with committee to go through that and get their feedback and input on that action plan to help us strengthen it and help us build the business case that is...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. One of the nice things about moving to a single authority, with the exception of Hay River and the Tlicho, is that it actually allows us to have this discussion, which is a discussion that we weren't able to have before when services were provided for a group of people.

Now, certainly, we can explore the possibility of mothers who meet the criteria for midwifery-supported birth can explore possibly having that birth in Hay River. There are some conditions around the birth. I think, for some situations, a first birth is something that we can't facilitate. If a medical...

The drop in this particular line is actually not as large as it looks because what this line does not show is the federal money that we're getting, which has been included in previous years' budgets. It hasn't come through the appropriation process to appear. It will likely come through by way of a supplementary. That will increase the budget here by a fair amount. There is a reduction in this area, a $600,000 reduction, which is part of the $2.5 million that was allocated in 2017-2018 but not spent. We had to make some hard decisions moving forward. We knew that we wanted to or, rather, we...

Mr. Chair, it mostly shows up on page 176 under line B, community and mental health and addictions and, yes, $1.734 million.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to have to go back and review the previous audit because I don't recall saying we are doing a review that we are going to release on audiology.

We are currently reviewing a number of our services in a number of the areas that we are providing. We certainly were working to address some of the challenges and wait times that we were feeling in our experience in audiology. As a result, last sitting, last budget session, we actually increased the number of audiologists in the Northwest Territories by creating a position in the Beaufort-Delta. Currently, all three...

Well, Mr. Chair, there is $400,000 in here. We believe that, initially, we can use some of our own internal dollars to start implementing these types of things, but we need to finish the action plan and then, from there, test some of the hypotheses and theories, and then we need to figure out whether or not a business case is necessary to seek additional funds. I am not going to say that additional funds aren't necessary. I am saying that we need to do the business case and be able to have a defendable business case to compete against all initiatives that the GNWT is taking forward. Right now...