Sandy Lee

Thank you. There are two issues with that. I guess one larger issue of health care delivery in general in that I know that the Minister of Health and Social Services had introduced aspects to the policy that was to work to reduce costs or at least better coordinate medical travel. I think he implemented a plan that sort of streamlined at least the authorizing process for medical travel, I think in the hopes of having better control over the medical travel in general. I understand that this is the employer’s portion of it. So I’d like to know if the Minister of Finance or Minister of Health...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On that, I understand these expenditures are for the increasing dental premiums and medical travel assistance. Is that right? I’d like to get some information on what the explanation is for these increases. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Just a couple of things I forgot to mention. One, of course, is to thank the Minister and the department for bringing this law forward and the second thing is with respect to when this bill will come to force. Mr. Chair, I think that is a very important issue in this regard. There are going to be requirements on the part of retailers on what to do and not to do as a fall-off on this legislation. I think it is only fair that we, as a Legislature, give them sufficient time and resources where feasible to do that. I think that a similar situation existed with the Personal...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think I am going to have to ask the Minister to be more forthcoming on exactly what his approach is and where this government stands on this issue. This government is not exactly a bystander on this file. This government has invested a lot of money and the well being of this cutting and polishing plant has many implications for us. I do understand. I don’t even want to call this a dispute. I see that there is a disagreement. I know this is a disagreement between two commercial companies. I want to respect their place in sorting that out, but I am still not...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Standing Committee on Social Programs held public hearings on Bill 16, Tobacco Control Act, on December 5, 2005, in Yellowknife; on December 6th in Enterprise and Kakisa; and on December 7th in Fort Providence and Behchoko. The clause-by-clause review of the bill took place in Yellowknife over two meetings on January 31st and February 9, 2006. The committee would like to thank all of the people who spoke to the bill during our public meetings.

The committee heard strong support for Bill 16 from representatives of the Canadian Public Health Association, the NWT...

Mr. Speaker, what this shows me is if we can just work through the manmade barriers, women will always achieve in spectacular fashion for the entire country and mankind.

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Thank you. If I could get some more detailed information about what the project guideline was from the federal government to qualify for this funding, along with information on the 11 projects from the Minister. I would really appreciate that. Thank you.

No, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a short question. The Minister of Health indicated earlier that this is as a result of a pilot project being funded by the federal government and that there are 11 different projects. Did he mean that there were other projects being funded under this program, and, if that’s the case, where are those programs located? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question on the sport, recreation and youth for $400,000. I just would like to get some information on why we have seen the kind of increase from the projected budget on the Arctic Winter Games budget. Mr. Chair, I obviously support the work and mandate of Arctic Winter Games, so that is not the issue here, but I just want to know if some anomaly or something extraordinary happened that caused such a big increase in the budget. I understand that the regional trials travel, for example, was budgeted for $92,000, but now we are projecting $195,000. So that is...