Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, first of all, it’s really important for the seniors out there to know that this government will continue to provide a package of programs that are better than any of the other comparable, competitive, very good…We have very good packages for constituents. As the changes are laid out right now, for a single income senior, if your retirement income is around $60,000 to $70,000, you will still get supplementary health benefits. I think talking about net income has missed that point. When I travel across the country and the Territories and tell them that most...

I think the information session...That is why we are calling it an information session workshop format; because that is what the NWT Seniors’ Society and other NGOs have done before in talking about changes to supplementary health format. In those discussions I think it would be a good opportunity to show the package of programs that we have available for seniors in the North, understanding, for example, we provide an exception for property taxes for seniors, which I don’t think other provinces do, and there are some other programs. We have to look at the attractiveness for seniors to retire...

Mr. Speaker, I am going to have to ask the Member to re-ask that question because I am not sure if I understand it.

Mr. Speaker, given the level of interest and the communication that we’ve been receiving from the public on these changes, I have a feeling that we are going to be able to seek and get input from the public as well as stakeholders to these programs. The department plans to have information sessions in all of the regional centres. We are going to do a full and meaningful consultation. The end date is to have it done by September 1st, but as I stated before, the important part of this exercise is to do the right work and we are committed to do that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had the opportunity to meet with the executive of the NWT Seniors’ Society at lunch hour and I’d like to just recognize…I know there are lots of seniors in the gallery and I am sure they will all be recognized in due course, but I don’t want to take up all the time. I’ll just say President Tom Wilson, Mr. Leon Peterson from Fort Smith, Ms. Barb Hood, executive director of the NWT Seniors’ Society, Esther Braden is sitting next to her, Ms. Eileen Collins from Hay River and Mrs. Bea Campbell from Fort Smith. I see other members sitting there next to them. Thank you, Mr...

Mr. Speaker, obviously he didn’t catch my first answer. An analysis was done, policy approved in 2007. Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you that our government’s objective is not to encourage people to move away, not to incur extra costs because people are not taking drugs they need or medical supplies. We are committed to improving this program. We will cover the vast majority of our population who need the support from the government and that’s what the seniors told us during the consultation between 2003 and ’07; that we need to make the program generous for seniors. We have tried to do that and...

Mr. Speaker, I can categorically tell the Member that he is wrong when he says nothing is being done about tracking down those people with NWT health care cards when they should not...We have implemented an audit program. The audit office of the GNWT has been sending letters...We’ve been doing auditing of all of the claims that we are receiving on NWT health care and if there are too many services being rendered outside of the provinces, we’re writing them and we’re asking them to document them and if they don’t give us the documents we call them and we are tracking them down. We have been...

I believe there was somebody else who was quoted to say we have a Cadillac program. Mr. Speaker, I think there is no dispute by seniors and everybody that we do have a very good program for seniors, not only for health benefits but for housing, property tax exemption and such. I have told the NWT Seniors’ Society that we are committed to making sure that we have a very good package of programs for seniors. So I will continue to work on that principle and I am sure everybody else will make sure that I do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the policy section of the Department of Health and Social Services were responsible for designing and doing consultations between 2003 to 2007 on the implementation of the policy with the health insurance office in Inuvik and we have obtained Blue Cross, who is the provider of insurance programs for the government to implement this plan.

Unless the Member has information that I’m not aware of, there is no jurisdiction in Canada that has a universal coverage for supplementary health benefits. In fact, programs like home care services, which the NWT provides as a core service universally, is not included as supplementary health coverage. There is no jurisdiction in Canada that covers 100 percent for anybody who is over 60. There is no...It’s a supplementary health benefit, is what it is. It is supplementary. It’s extra. It’s not part of the Health Care Plan. So universality does not apply here.

We do have a more generous program...