Sandy Lee

Number 3 tells that answer. So I would encourage the Member and everybody else to look at this questionnaire that we posted on the website. The Member is suggesting, and others are suggesting, that we have a predetermined course of action and that we have a date in place and that we’re shoehorning the public into a decision, which is absolutely not true.

Number 3: Knowing what we know now about the costs and needs of the various existing uninsured health benefits programs, the Department of Health and Social Services is considering rolling the three programs this paper has discussed into a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member stated that he read the document on the website, but I don’t believe he understood what he read.

---Interjection

As the Member knows, these changes were done and announced in 2007, as a result of what I know because I was here for about seven years’ work. Those were announced in 2007. The motion was passed in 2008…no, 2009, last year, to go back and do the work. We have done that. We have done a lot of intense research on who this program is serving right now. We feel we have an excellent set of information to go out to the public to engage public discussion on. I think that we should be applauded, actually, for going out to the public with the information we have and asking the public to give us input.

M...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, the drug cost is a key part of the landscape of health care spending going forward. In the Globe and Mail on Saturday, there was a two page spread about health care issues and drug costs being one of the biggest items. I think we are much more advanced in the North in terms of this issue than most other jurisdictions.

To answer the Member’s question, the department is right now working on a formal strategy. It is highly complex. It has lots of stakeholders, but we have undertaken to do that work. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member knows that we don’t have fee systems in our health care system. I don’t believe there is a co-payment for medical travel for those whose income is higher than a certain level. I could only think of that. In long-term care facilities, people pay minimal for staying there. But by and large, we have the most generous and open health care coverage compared to anywhere else in the country and probably around the world. Thank you.

I don’t believe there was a question. I just want to clarify that the public working group did have a… The department officials met with the public working group, the NGO groups. They wanted to have good information to base their discussion on. They’ve had a look at the information that we’ve provided and they are working with us. We will continue to work with them, work with the Members, work with the public, because I agree with the Member that this is the best program there is in supplementary health anywhere in Canada. We will continue to maintain that and we want to make sure that those...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’m aware that the staff have done a lot of work to prepare for this public discussion with the public. We have looked internally to partners in the Department of Finance and Stats Bureau to get information. They met with the public advisory group a few times and we have put out the public discussion paper at our earliest possible opportunity so that the public will have an opportunity to put their full input into this process. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Wednesday, March 3, 2010, I will move that Bill 1, An Act to Amend the Veterinary Profession Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

When a family who is going through distress or, for some reason, are not able to provide safety and protection to a child, the social workers will work to see where else they can find support within the community. They would look to the extended families like grandparents or aunts or any other family members that could give that support. Obviously, we have more stats for those children who have to be taken out of the family setting and we would first look to extended families to take care of those children. We would look for families within the community and when they are assigned with those...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There’s a lot of difference between Rio Tinto or BHP and the public health system. Our system is demand driven. People put the highest priority on their health and social services. On a daily basis, whether it’s Friday night, Saturday morning, midnight, I get calls from Members and the general public asking us to do something more for health and social services or extra services they would like. You cannot compare a health care system to a private corporation who needs to check the bottom line all the time. We have finance people in our authorities and our department...