Sandy Lee

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important for the Member to know that I do understand the Member’s concern. We do want to make sure that we have a process in place where our residents who provide service have a concern about their practitioner, that there is a process in place. I am just not able to say anything that would give comfort to her that would in any way talk about an individual who is not before this Assembly.

Mr. Speaker, I do commit to her that I will talk to her privately and give her the information that she needs, at least over a short period of time and then we could go from there...

When the motion was passed we had a big debate about whether or not income test is a good option. We should look at things from the blank slate. We did review those. I directed the staff to look at the user profile, look at who’s using it, how much it’s costing, what does it mean, how can we expand the programs to those who are excluded. We looked at all of that, Mr. Speaker, and I know that there are those who choose not to accept some of the information that they received. But the fact of the matter is we have done the research and the research shows that, in terms of income profile of our...

Mr. Speaker, as I stated earlier, the Medical Profession Act does state the process by which a complaint against a practicing physician is conducted. It does try to balance the rights of the client as well as the physician, Mr. Speaker. I’d be happy to give the Member a private briefing on how this works. Once in a while we do get concerns from people about what they are not happy with about what the doctor has done or not, or any other health care professional. There are different phases that this goes through. Sometimes just talking to the local authority resolves the matter. Other times it...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Using income threshold and looking at one’s ability to pay to determine whether you have access to a program or not is used in many places. We have those in lots of government programs, including the seniors’ fuel subsidy. This is a very commonly accepted way of doing it. We’re expanding the program to those on the basis of income, whereas before it was on the basis of age. I believe that this is the right thing to do.

I am aware, Mr. Speaker, that the Member considers himself a student of rules and procedures of the House. I know he knows the rules and procedures of the House. He studies books on the rules and procedures of the House. Mr. Speaker, he knows that I’m not privy to table Cabinet documents, but the Member is also aware that every major information and analysis about this program would go to Cabinet and then it was made available to committees. That’s our regular practice.

Mr. Speaker, if the Member has any other alternatives that he wants us to consider, we would look at that. This has been a...

Mr. Speaker, the information that we presented to the standing committee Tuesday morning has now been posted on the website and there is very detailed information about what number of residents in the Territories currently have no access to extended health benefits whether through the government program or third-party insurance. The proposal we are making is that depending on where the income threshold is, whether it is $30,000 or $50,000, and remembering again that that is the starting threshold so that if the income threshold was at $50,000, any family making a net income between $50,000 to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know that question has come up: has the department looked at what impact this will have in terms of people wanting to leave. I have two direct answers to that. One is that we have no reason to believe that anything we are doing here would encourage anybody to leave the North because our program is as good, if not better, than what’s available anywhere else. So our supp health benefits are still a robust one and the fact is all across the country, except for Nunavut, all extended health benefits are income tested. Not only are they income tested, some of them are means...

The fact is there is a lot of information to make informed, rational, logical decisions about where we should go with this program on behalf of all the people who need our attention with this program. Mr. Speaker, I know the Member is referring to the public working group. In fact, they asked for more information about the program. Exactly who does it serve? What is the background of the people that access this program? What would it mean in many different ways? So they asked for more detailed information before they put any input in, so we presented that information to the group and the...

Mr. Speaker, I don’t understand why the Member thinks that he can’t put input into this process. Exactly what is the problem he has with the substance? What is it about the program as proposed that he doesn’t agree with or support?

Mr. Speaker, public meetings started this Monday. We are going to continue to have public meetings. In preparation for those public meetings and public consultations, we posted a conversation document a month ago. We are in the middle of the debate. Mr. Speaker, I would like to hear from the Member what in substance does he have a problem with. Thank you.

The Member knows and everybody here knows projecting to the last dollar what our health care expenditures are going to be, whether how much it will cost to run Stanton tomorrow or Extended Health Benefits Program, what’s it going to be at Hay River, whatever, that is, I mean, there are lots of formulas to do that, but at the end of the day, it’s a projection.

Mr. Speaker, sustainability of health care programs is a national issue. It’s an issue for every government. We know that on the whole that we will continue to see increases and we budget accordingly. So sustainability is an issue that we...