Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I indicated earlier, the homelessness budget we have is really popular. We usually get more applications than we have the money for. I think it is an area that we need to look to see how we can address that. I am talking to the Minister of the Housing Corporation to see how we can partner and put some energy into smaller communities. Yellowknife has been able to build a continuum of services for homelessness, but also… So that’s an area that we need to do. But I need to say that our budget, if you notice, as we stated in the opening statement, has almost… I know it...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t know which one is which, but for the one we are building in Yellowknife I would hope that’s not a one-year lease because we have invested in renovating and we expect that clinic to do the work that four other clinics have been doing. We have different leases in different communities for our office as well as health centres. The one in Yellowknife, I’m told, is a 10-year contract. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Foundation for Change Action Plan has three pillars. One of them is accessibility and that is to make investments and focus our energy on making sure that all of our residents and our health centres have access to the health care that they need. As the Member mentioned, obviously the on-line service and electronic methods of providing health care is one of our priorities. In the last two or three years we have invested about $15 million into the system, and we will continue to work to improve accessibility and services in our small communities. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, it is absolutely fair for you to raise any issues you like. I am happy to respond to them here.

Mr. Chairman, I think it is really important to remember that, for the last four days, we have been talking about the importance of making sure that we use our Health and Social Services dollars wisely. We have a $326 million budget. The needs and demands are endless. On any given day, I have at least a million dollar ask on my desk that I cannot meet. We do spend about $1 million a day. It is a high cost business. We do a very good job, so when I say it is about application, it means...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can tell all the Members that the only reduction we have through the system is the THAF funding. The government initiative to consolidate fuel costs, we are transferring $7 million to Public Works. So some of that will come out of all of the authorities.

Mr. Chairman, in that issue, I think it would be helpful if the Member could… We have not received a proposal, that I am aware of, from any group or community government. We understand there are not as many NGOs in communities outside of Yellowknife so we do accept and consider applications from community organizations, community bands, the municipal governments. If they want to submit a proposal, we could work together with the organizations, perhaps through also the Deh Cho Health and Social Services Authority so we could discuss more on that and we could give him information on how they...

As the deputy minister stated, we have a portability provision. All the provinces and territories know that our people travel to each other’s jurisdictions and they have a pretty clear guideline on paying for that. So as long as we bill other jurisdictions, those are paid. Now, obviously we want to make sure we bill for every service we render to anybody who is not from here. Every health centre has that function incorporated into their finance office. That is a course of business. In Inuvik the hospital does that, Stanton does that, and any of the clinics, and the headquarters, through the DM...

Mr. Chairman, the agreement that has been agreed to has been worked on for quite a while. That contract is closed, basically. The negotiation has been going on and that is done. As the deputy minister had indicated, there are some other things that we want to be able to prove, but that would involve larger discussions between not only the DMs but myself with the Nunavut government. This contract that we are finishing off is basically dealing with a situation where there had not been any solid agreement before and we are closing that part of our relationship with Nunavut. So we will have to...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member is right; this section has a sunset of THAF of $3.1 million, but it also has investments of $10.82 million that goes to various areas that constitutes the biggest amount of the plus and minus of that item. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I may, I would like to ask the deputy minister to give some information on where we are with physician recruitment in our authorities, especially in light of the new Collective Agreement and as well as the work that the deputy minister has been doing with the medical forum on this issue. Thank you.