Sandy Lee

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Member’s comment. What I propose to do is work with the association. I am committed to communicating directly with them so that we can sit down and have a dialogue about how we could come up with an agreement. I could tell the Member today that I am committed to finding a solution out of this situation. I understand. I have told the parents who have talked to me that no one has to convince me of the importance of this program. I am a little hesitant to address this publicly, because, Mr. Speaker, every day I get asked by Members and the public for additional...

Mr. Speaker, it is not semantics. It is not semantics. I am not changing the wording there. Mr. Speaker, I hear the Member and I tell the Member now, there is no money for respite care for 2011-12. The money we approved yesterday for $250,000 is for 2010-11. Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority was proactive in approaching YACL to say that there is no money there up to March 2011 and can we work together to come up with a plan.

Mr. Speaker, having said that, I am willing to work with YACL to see how we can transition. They were given six months’ notice to tell them that we do not...

The programs that we have for the NWT residents, whether it be NIHB, the federal government’s NIHB, Metis Health Benefits and Supp Health, that makes it so there is no need for catastrophic drug coverage. So what the Member is talking about is other things like people in low income, people can’t afford. So if you are talking about how to compare between the three programs and finding equity, that is part of the recommendation of the Joint Working Group and we need to look at those and look at the proposal. Thank you.

Whatever she wants to do and she’s suggesting these policy changes. As it is now, the Supp Health Policy that would have come into effect on November 1st has been rescinded. Everything is status quo until we change anything. If we need to include anything or change anything else, that’s a policy change. So we need to do more work on that and I’m making a commitment, as I did in my Minister’s statement, that we are working to come back with a proposal on the recommendations made by the Joint Working Group and anything else. Until we bring in new policies, the status quo remains.

The Member knows that NIHB is not part of this program and although NIHB encourages people to have third-party options and when they do, they are asked to go to that first. One of the suggestions made that we want to look at is to require all Metis health and supp health... Well, it’s no longer supp health, it’s now extended health benefits which is what’s in place. We will look at how we can implement requiring third-party insurance and allowing or encouraging people to go through that process first. So that will be part of the work that we’ll be doing moving forward.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I stated in my Minister’s statement, I will be coming back next week with more information on the work plan or the time frame within which the recommendations made in the Joint Working Group report need to be reviewed and considered, so I will be looking into that. Thank you.

That’s the expectation that we live under on everything we do. So we will be following those. Thank you.

The discussions that I’ve been having with the Members on the other side with respect to this issue is that Members want us to get some stuff done that were suggested in the Joint Working Group report.

In my Minister’s statement this morning, I talked about the fact that we need to look at health benefits, a program not being the first option but encouraging people to get private insurance first, parity with the NIHB program, the pharmaceutical strategy to include generic drugs and drug pricing and efficiencies and the elimination of grandfathering. So there are a number of very specific items...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is the most public of public forums. We made the announcement this morning. Mrs. Groenewegen, as chair of the P and P, as well as my co-chair of the Joint Working Group, we have agreed and we are committed to working together on any of the communications that we do. We will do interviews together, because we would like to continue to work together in the spirit in which we worked together in that Joint Working Group. So, Mr. Speaker, we will be open to any interviews or anything and we will be tabling the document this afternoon, followed by a statement next week...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We will do that, as we have done all along. This is a consensus government, and contrary to what might be spoken here, Members here know that we work together on any of the major changes. So, Mr. Speaker, I will continue to do that as we move forward. Thank you.