Sandy Lee

The Member knows that the Department of Health and Social Services is not in the business of building houses, so we would not be involved in that. The Member also knows because she had asked in the past and I’ve given her information about the kind of support we provide for persons with disabilities. We have various programs. The Member mentioned an assisted living complex in Hay River, but we also have group homes, we have supported living, we provide respite care. I mean, the persons with disabilities don’t come in one shape and size and need, and so individuals are assessed and they are...

I do appreciate the Member’s questions and I do appreciate that these are of concern to us. I am a little concerned that what we are talking about here may go into clinical decisions that our health care professionals make by whatever knowledge they have or the legislation or policy, so this is a very complex issue. I think the better thing for me to do is just to undertake to get the information for the Members and provide them with the information.

I do want to say that they are governed by legislation, so we need to get to those. I do share the Member’s concerns about improving what we are...

I might have to ask my staff here to get me the details, but we run the Small Community Shelter Program, that is for $250,000 and then we have another program under a different name where we help our people to be relocated or go back to communities they came from sometimes. That is a separate funding for $200,000, but I need to revisit the name of that program. These are the two that I can think of right now, other than O and M funding support that we provide to lots of different NGOs.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’ve discussed this and we commit that I am giving it full consideration and I will be communicating with the committee. Thank you.

I will ask the deputy minister to give more details, but just to explain to the Members here, under the Foundation for Change, there is a work item there to review mental health programming. I was advised, after the deputy minister came on board, when she looked at all of the programs and we identified right away that this mental health program needed to be looked at very closely with a view of improving that and restructuring that, so we have undertaken those actions. I don’t know the process is in terms of getting the terms of reference reviewed and such. I don’t think that we do that for...

That is part of our daily business, to manage our medical travel budget wisely. As the Member is aware, medical travel is under review from a couple of points of view, but from a daily arrangement for our residents who need to go to Edmonton, they are booked for the services they need. It is true since they’re having less flights and less direct flights and less turn-around between Yellowknife and Edmonton, we have seen the costs go up, but we have to do what we have to do for our residents. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As the Member knows, this is under discussion at committee level and I need to get back to Cabinet for further direction and then dissemination of the information to the public. But as the Member knows, following the two or three-year debate we have had on what was then known as Supplementary Health Benefits Policy, which has now been rescinded and that policy allowed for extension of coverage to what we know as the working poor, but with the rescinding of the policy we are basically back to status quo, subject to some of the changes we are making or we are suggesting...

Mr. Chairman, it is reflected in the budget to a certain extent. We have improved in our medical travel component of Stanton Territorial Health Authority, for example. This year’s deficit is less than last year’s. It is reflected. I need to get the DM to give a little bit more detail on how our deficit picture has changed as a system. Thank you.

As the Member stated, this is an issue that involves housing and income security and other sorts of government network programs that might create barriers in terms of benefits that one might get. That is something that I would be willing to look at.

Going forward, though, it is something that future governments have to consider, because we do, in our Foundation for Change action plan, I believe it is the approach of any other government to encourage family members and communities to partake in taking care of our elderly and persons with needs as much as possible, and it’s something that we need...

I need to confirm that. I don’t know where the Member got that information. I’m not at all aware and I don’t believe that we use only one northern airline. We use both and we use smaller airlines as well, community airlines if they are available for medical travel, because we have people travelling from all over the Territories to Yellowknife and then on to Edmonton. Mr. Speaker, we use First Air and Canadian North to facilitate medical travel.