Sandy Lee

I’m not sure if I understand the question. I’d like to give our public a lot more credit than what the Member is suggesting. I think if you see the material on the website, it’s quite plainly written. There will be a facilitator at the meeting that will present the facts. We’re not going to tell people to interpret. We will present the facts and then engage in a dialogue, very much like what we did with the standing committee and very much like what we did, I believe, with the public working group. You lay out the facts and then ask the people for their input. The facts are important, because...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member has been here for 14 years, and he asked exactly the same question, and he understands the challenges we face and the challenges I face as the Minister of Health. This government is more daunting than we’ve ever had before. We have demographics that are changing; needs are changing. We have increased our budget by a large percentage, but our boards are struggling to provide all the services that they need. All indicators are showing that we, by far, are doing better than any other place for this kind of remoteness and this kind of size and the challenges we...

Every effort is being made to make sure that we provide a good health care coverage to everyone in the Territories. The community of Tsiigehtchic is getting better service than any other community that size in the Northwest Territories.

That Member is looking at the material that the committee received. Our discussion was that the data shows that we need to consider those as a policy direction. We’re not going out to say we should do this or we should do that. Copayment is a possible option, but the data or grandfathering or anything else, that’s a transition measure or where do we go next that we should consider. I think Members should take that when we say that we are consulting with the public. In order for the public to respond to us, we need to present them with some hard facts about what is the cost of extended health...

I think it’s important to note that working group was part of the discussion process, but they weren’t meant to be the exclusive or the only group of consultation. Since our last experience, we’ve discussed with the committee about how to improve on things. We’ve had a few meetings on that. Departmental officials have met with health providers, the authorities. I have discussed it with the chairs of the boards. We’ve met with the NWT Seniors’ Society. They’ve invited me a couple of times and we’ve had discussions on that. So I think it’s important to note the public advisory group was part of...

As I’ve indicated, the deputy minister will be participating in that board and any proposals they may have for raising money for capital, obviously we’re willing to work with that and see how we can work together. I think we should be careful that raising money for capital equipment is for capital equipment. Often it’s the O and M and the ongoing funding that is a lot bigger than the capital funding itself. We should be mindful of that when we are talking about fundraising projects. Obviously, I appreciate and value the work that the foundation does and any idea they may have that they want us...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m always willing to meet with any group or organization to hear them out and see what we can do in terms of working together. I can tell the Member that I have met with the Stanton Territorial Foundation executive director and chair quite early in my mandate. We have also learned that in fact the deputy minister of Health and Social Services is a member of that board, which has not been exercised in a while. We are certainly willing to work with the foundation and see what projects we can work on together.

Before I begin the Member’s new set of questions, I just want to say the Member is right from the last question that there are two parts to this funding request, the biggest being what’s in front of us now under capital funding for $904,000.

I also want to address why, when we knew this for a year and a half or so, why did this become urgent and is it lack of planning on the department’s part. Mr. Chairman, the answer to that is this came as a surprise to us, but it does happen when a vendor decides that they will not support software, and, obviously, software, the support is important, that...

The input will come from the feedback that we would receive in the town hall meetings. As well, we will be posting questionnaires on the website and we would advertise that so people will be able to go in there. There are some checkbox kind of questions, but there are also spaces where people can write their opinions on the questions they ask. So it will be designed in a way that will allow people to give their feedback on the information they see and what other suggestions they might have. Thank you.

Under the current system there is no appeal process for medical travel. The way the system is set up is that the health insurance office looks at the policy, looks at the guidelines and they apply the policy accordingly.