Sandy Lee

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.

Yes, Mr. Chairman. I can say we have qualified people running this. I will make a commitment to give him more information on how the services are delivered, where they are, what they are being used for and how the training needs are met. Thank you.

Yes, please, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, as we indicated before, this is relatively new and it is being used in different ways by different authorities. It all depends on the service requirements, the interest even on the part of the people on the ground. I have visited different centres where, for Inuvik for example, they couldn’t say enough about this machine and how much it has helped them. The picture is quite buried all across. It is like any time you introduce a new technology into your service delivery, the uptake and the use is different depending on the regions and the places. I don’t have updated information...

Mr. Speaker, the health of our Northerners begins with each individual choosing to live a healthy lifestyle. An essential part of one’s lifestyle is deciding to make healthy food and beverages a part of everyday life.

The Drop the Pop challenge, now in its fifth year, is a positive way for the Department of Health and Social Services to encourage healthy choices and to raise awareness about the negative effects of too much sugar in one’s diet. Since the inception of the campaign in 2004, we have increased school participation from 13 schools to 40 schools registered this year. I would encourage...

Mr. Chairman, we launched that in a big way, I believe, last fall. So I would be happy to give an update to all the Members as to where we are on that and looking forward as to where we see going for the next year or so.

With respect to the support for seniors, as the Members are aware, the funding for the Senior Games came out of THAF funding and that funding is expiring. The NWT Seniors’ Society has submitted a proposal on how they would like to work with the government on providing support to seniors and creating an opportunity for the seniors to do healthy living. So we’re in the process of...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll take the Member’s point, but I think it is really hard to get an accurate comparison to take one part out of the government’s budget, say from 1986 or something, and compare it to ours unless we used the same indicators. So I just want to say, modern medicine and health care have changed so we need to know what is included there. People in Tsiigehtchic, they are connected to roads which is different than some of the other communities in the Territories who are not connected by the road and they still get fly-in nursing service.

Mr. Chairman, I understand his...