Kevin A. Menicoche

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services some questions from the statement I gave earlier.

How exactly did this new medevac contract benefit our small and remote communities, given those two circumstances that I spoke about in my Member’s statement? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The Minister of Health and Social Services announced a new medevac contract in January of this year. The new eight-year contract combines the medevac and clinical services as well as provides for newer aircraft and new equipment to serve all of our communities in the Northwest Territories. This is designed to improve the quality of service and response times.

In my constituency in recent years, there have been two instances where people felt that our medevac system failed them. Firstly, in May of 2013, the medevac took six hours to reach the community of Trout Lake, a mere...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’m glad that the Minister concurred to that.

Does the Minister feel that there is need to review the policy, or is it just a case where it was a malfunctioning piece of equipment that created the confusion? Thank you.

The particular case I’m talking about is Fort Simpson. Apparently, the depth sounder wasn’t working properly, so the staff said, oh look, we have to close tonight. I think that was on Sunday, but the depth sound meter wasn’t working properly. Then the department advised the public and then they opened up the next day for 12 hours on Monday, then Tuesday they said they’re doing daylight hours. It is really confusing for the residents of Fort Simpson and the businesses, so they were quite confused.

Once again I would like to ask the Minister what specifically happened in the case of Fort Simpson...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’m glad that we’re working towards evaluating it, because it’s a much needed program, I believe.

As we move forward, can the Minister know… Will he compile an overall report for this House? Thank you.

I know that we heard that there were funding fears out there.

I’d just like to ask the Minister, with the 23 communities that are using it now, how is it being funded and what are the plans for the future? Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Today I want to continue a familiar theme: health care for my people. I don’t want to give the impression that our health care system is fundamentally flawed. It isn’t, Mr. Speaker. But as the Minister of Health says himself, there’s definitely room for improvement.

One of the goals of our health system is to deliver services as close to home as possible, and I’m all for that. A simple change would really help out the people of Fort Liard and, at the same time, probably lower the costs of health in my region.

People of Fort Liard are already getting some of their health...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I just want to say that I think the Government Operations have done an excellent report. One thing they didn’t note is that it’s another statutory office. So, we’ve got the Languages Commissioner that Mr. Blake spoke about, the Human Rights Commission and we’ve also got an Information Commissioner.

In my term as MLA, I’ve learned that I’ve helped constituents go through these commissioners’ offices and not all the time they had their needs met. People do want to be heard. They want their concerns heard, and as an MLA, we can only go so far and do as much as we...

Especially this time of year, of course, I pride the ferry captains and all staff that do everything they can to extend the ferry day by day. But in this case it was the failure of a piece of equipment that confused everybody. Everybody thought definitely that the ferry was being shut down.

Perhaps the Minister can issue a public statement to the residents of Fort Simpson apologizing for the confusion this year, and even with that little simple statement. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to ask the Minister of Transportation about the policy about ferry closures at this time of year. It’s very stressful for all the residents that are on the ferry system. I had a couple of calls from residents of Fort Simpson that indicate there was a bit of confusion this year.

I would like to ask the Minister, what policy does the Department of Transportation have for notifying the general public about ferry closures? Thank you.