Sandy Lee

Mr. Chairman, I can say just from the statement that the Member made, part of Foundation for...action plan is to do an inventory of facility needs to look at the inventory and the status and shapes of our health centres and health care facilities, also looking at long-term care needs of our residents in the Territories.

We know demographically we are going to need about 38 to 40 beds in the Territories over the next little while and it will be up to us to make a decision as to where that would go and I know that Sahtu is looking at that. So that’s where we are with the inventory, doing the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just to jog the memory of everybody here, Mr. Speaker, the Strategic Initiatives committees were set up at the beginning of this Assembly in order that our government could work across the departments to advance the priorities that were set out by the 16th Assembly. All of the work that we have been doing in these committees -- and there were five committees set up: Building Our Future, Managing This Land, Reducing the Cost of Living, Maximizing Opportunities and Refocusing Government -- had been added to the budgets that we have considered and approved, both in O and M...

I am afraid I am not on the inside of Minister Flaherty or Minister Stockwell who is now the new Treasury chair. I can tell you that Nunavut government, Yukon government and this government have worked hard, methodically and substantively to get this program renewed. The proposal we have is asking for about $200 million because we want to build in the escalator. There has been a working group of assistant deputy ministers of health of all three governments. We have the Yukon, Nunavut and myself; Ministers over the last two years have had meetings with the Minister of Health. In the most recent...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To my left is deputy minister of Health and Social Services, Paddy Meade; and to my right is director of finance, Mr. Derek Elkin.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Much of what the deputy minister said in terms of the work we are doing on the governance model and role clarity, that does deal with the thing that the MLA Krutko just brought up. We are working to strengthen accountability in service delivery and financial accountability plus I’m just saying this in my own language here, but it’s written in a more fancy way in the book... We are working for service accountability, financial accountability and coordination accountability.

Right now, the way our authorities are set up, they are quite independent. They get bulk funding...

Mr. Chairman, I remember looking at that very closely as a Regular Member too, so the minute I came into this office I reviewed that. Since then, my understanding of the contract is, we have to go back to the history of this, but I think the agreement was signed by the Minister at the time of 11th or 12th Assembly and it is a pretty clear cut, short agreement on how much the federal government is willing to pay for the doctor service and hospital service for our aboriginal people. There’s not a whole lot of negotiating clauses built into that. It is renewable every year, so it is either we don...

This is not something that’s been brought up to me before in detail, so I would like to... I need to undertake to look into that further. I understand that the Member wants us to set up a policy saying that no person should be refused service. I think that’s what he is saying. I think we are looking at probably some provisions under labour work where workers do have a right to consider some safety issues. So there is some balancing of interests here. I think it might be more complicated than it sounds on the surface, but I will commit to look into this further and consult with my counterpart...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, to the Member. We are reviewing the Mental Health and Addictions Program. Yes, we are working with IRC to do what the Member is saying, aftercare programming in Tuk. Yes, I agree with the Member that there is a need in all of the Beaufort-Delta, which is the reason why IRC is doing a community needs survey for the entire region. The Member mentioned earlier that we should work with the federal government. I want to let him know that the Department of Health has submitted an application to the Mental Health Commission to get more money. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Chairman, I don’t think we are doing board reform initiative in Foundation for Change, but, obviously, that initiative was introduced. It is being put back and it is being revised. But within the health care system we recognize the governance and accountability framework is important. I want to ask the deputy minister to explain a bit about the work that we are doing in that regard.

I would be happy to provide the Members with the terms of the agreement and some of the related issues on that, and I would be happy to meet with committee or the Members to give more information. I think it is a misnomer to say an outstanding amount, because the contract is pretty clear. It was signed by previous governments. It states what they’re going to pay and how much they will pay every year, and for reasons I am not aware of, there were not a lot of provisions put in there for renegotiating or increasing the amount of money the federal government is willing to give. So we have to...