Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is with a strong sense of loss that I rise in the House to acknowledge the passing of a great northern woman and leader, Bertha Allen. Bertha is known throughout the Beaufort-Delta, the NWT, Canada and the world as a strong yet soft-spoken Gwich’in woman who lived and worked for the advancement of aboriginal and northern women and social change.

In 1978, Bertha founded the Native Women’s Association of the Northwest Territories. It was her goal to ensure indigenous women of the North were not left behind in the fast-paced development of the day.

She saw that women...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Medical Profession Act, as any other professional body, it lays out a very clear process on how these things get conducted. It does not allow for Minister to intervene. I understand the overall responsibility I have as a Minister to make sure that there is a process in place. I do appreciate that the Member did let me know about that. I am not able to say anything in the House that would attribute anything to individuals out there. Having said that, I did let the Member know that I am concerned about what the Member has told me. I have told her that I...

The fact of the matter is, as a part of our consultation process we did write to the pharmacy association and the NWT Medical Association. The pharmacy association did not respond. We had written in March. We did get an email from Mr. Dolynny, who was not a president of the pharmacy association. He invited our staff to come. We had five days’ notice. Our staff was not going to be available for that time. It was five days’ notice. We had offered to meet with them at another time when it was more convenient, Mr. Speaker. So it is entirely inaccurate for anybody to suggest and it’s without...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do want to let the Member know that I do agree that people who have concerns of this nature should be able to go through the process and have the matter resolved as soon as possible.

Mr. Speaker, I would have to commit to look into how long certain cases do take, what is the normal course of process in going through this. I have to tell the Member that this does not come across my desk very often. I think I might have been thinking about a court case that seemed to take a little longer, but that’s different than the board of inquiry. So, Mr. Speaker, I just do not have...

My position is that it is fair and equitable because it gives access to all non-aboriginal people. It uses a criteria being used all around the world and all across the country, in determining a government social program. This is to be a safety net. We are going to give benefits to seniors. We’re going to give benefits to those with chronic conditions. We’ll be able to expand services to single moms, young university students. We’re going to be opening the program to everybody.

The program that we have now is not a program... We already have a separate program for Metis and NIHB for the treaty...

Obviously I disagree with the Member’s position on that. The fact is the cost of living issue for everyone in the North is important to this government. It’s also important that we continue to provide a robust Extended Health Benefits Program to our residents. What we are trying to do is to expand the coverage to those who do not have it right now, who are experiencing cost of living issues, as well as anybody else. So we are proposing an income as a criterion to consider and we are open to listen to our residents through this public hearing process about what they think of this and what other...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Listening to the Member’s statement quite closely, it appears that she knows exactly where this policy is headed, what the intent is, what we are trying to achieve, what unfairness and inequities that we are trying to ameliorate, because in fact she just said about 10 minutes ago that she agrees with the intent and the overall approach of this but that she would like it delayed until November. Putting aside the process, if she likes this policy, what is it that she would like to achieve by delaying the process, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.

The constituent that he mentioned, I have the copy of that e-mail too. That e-mail was written before we had all the details that we posted on the website just yesterday. That participant was part of the stakeholders group which did not have all of the income data and who would benefit or not. This is an evolving process, Mr. Speaker. The public hearings started today. That’s an opportunity for people to give us feedback into what we are presenting.

Mr. Speaker, the Member keeps saying where are the alternatives. I’d be happy to hear from him about what alternatives that he wants us to consider...

Mr. Speaker, the direction of the House and the result of the last discussions were that people wanted to know more about who were using this program, how the income threshold would impact the residents who were covered and who would not be covered anymore. At that time we suffered from not having enough detailed information about exactly who was served by this program.

Mr. Speaker, as I stated already, there hasn’t been, I don’t think, a more thorough analysis of a program like we have presented as a result of doing this research for the last number of months and we are putting the information...

I know that any debate about health benefits is difficult, it’s emotional, and it’s a difficult thing to do. In answering the Member‘s question, it is a little bit about redistributing resources, but most importantly, Mr. Speaker, it’s about fairness.

I hope you don’t mind if I use this example, but it just keeps coming at me. In this Assembly there is myself, MLA Bisaro, the Member herself, Member Ramsay, Member Bromley, Member Abernethy and Member Hawkins who would belong to this program. Right now, when some of us hit 60 years old, they will get so many dollars for glasses and $1,000 dental...