Sandy Lee

Mr. Speaker, yes, as a matter of fact, we are communicating right now to sit down together and to less politicize this issue and have the facts prevail and have my officials sit with YACL and work out a resolution. I say it again, that we will find a resolution to provide assistance to YACL. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, everything that comes through Health and Social Services is highly charged and highly emotional. There are always more demands than supply of money. I just want to clarify the information on funding, because some Members seem to be not clear on that, Mr. Speaker. We just approved the business plan that we cannot talk about. I agree that there was money approved for that for next year, money being discussed, but that hasn’t to do with this funding arrangement we have with YACL. The THSSI funding we just approved in supplementary appropriation yesterday has...

Those are the changes that I will be coming forward with next week with a time frame and short-term, mid-term and long-term implementation plans, what we need to do and work together on in order to implement the changes that were suggested in the Joint Working Group and where we could move forward.

The recommendation that we have that we need to look at it is to encourage people to get third-party insurance and use it first. So we need to look at that. We will be coming back with a work plan on how long we need to take to look at those. We hope to be able to do that sooner than later and what best way there is to encourage people to do that. We will be making those proposals. Thank you.

I do agree with the Member that the most important pillar of the Supplementary Health Policy that we rescinded is the fact that we would have been able to expand the coverage to the working poor as of next Monday. That aspect was the most immediate and present Anti-Poverty Strategy that we had that we are not able to implement. I agree with the Member that we need to look at that. We’re going to look at that in a package with all the other suggestions that the Joint Working Group had asked us to work on and Cabinet is committed to looking at that.

Of course, in any changes, we work with the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Where they are impacted, one of the things in the statement is to look at all of the extended health benefits programs, Metis Health and NIHB, to find some sort of parity. Now, that would take some analysis and work and where it’s possible and appropriate, we will work with other governments to keep them in the loop. Thank you.

With all due respect, I categorically reject any notion that our department or myself as the Minister are not giving out the information. All the information was out there. The issue with the changes with supp health is that people just didn’t want it. It wasn’t the lack of information. So, Mr. Speaker, we will work as we have always with the Members on the other side and give detailed information.

We need to do more work on how we are going to implement the pharmaceutical strategy. We need to do more work on how we encourage people to get third-party insurance. We need to work on how we...

That’s the precise question that is the crux or main theme of all the discussions we’ve had in the last three or, actually, last seven years since I’ve been in this House.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say again that I think that the Joint Working Group report and its recommendations and principles went a long way in making statements on that. We are committed, as I stated in the Minister’s statement, to do what we can in the time we have left, what is doable, to lay out a work plan and try to do as much as possible. I agree with Members who stated earlier that this requires a lot of work and we...

I think the important message today is that we have moved this program forward. The Cabinet announcement is based on the Joint Working Group work and Joint Working Group report, and that document will be tabled later today. It has a number of suggestions on how we should improve our Supplementary Health Benefits Program and I think it’s important for us to move forward.

As Member Groenewegen suggested, there are a lot of things that we need to do, and that Members on the other side agree on, with respect to the Health Benefits Policy. I look forward to working with the members of the Standing...

The Joint Working Group report that will be tabled later has 11 recommendations and it will become public later on, so we will be responding to those on how we can move forward in working through those recommendations wherever possible, whenever possible, as soon as possible. Thank you.