Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In our policy and practice we give a lot of recognition to family members, extended families. As much as possible we would like the extended families involved. In fact, there are many children in care who are being fostered by extended families and relatives. We do pay them, as we would any other parents or families who take care of the children on a short-term basis or long-term basis. Without knowing the specifics of what the Member is talking about, I can’t get into the details and we wouldn’t do that here anyway. In general, we do recognize family members to a...

One example that I can think of is we’ve been reviewing the specialist services to see what services we provide, how they are being provided. The Stanton CEO and the department and refocusing government have been working on that. We have also done a review on medical travel, because that is a part that is completely dependent on demand and the requests that are made from the doctors and other service providers. That’s under review, and supplementary health benefits. We just went through a very detailed analysis on exactly how many people accessed that, how much it costs and who’s accessing...

I’m not sure if those are apples and oranges or peaches and cream.

---Laughter

The NWT Seniors’ Society is made up of Mr. Tom Wilson as president, from Fort Simpson, and Florence Barnaby, Bea Campbell, and we had a new member from Tuktoyaktuk that was appointed, and Eileen Collins from Hay River, and Leon Peterson from Fort Smith. They are really well-regarded and well-respected grandmothers and grandfathers from all over the Territories. It is a really good group.

The motion was a recommendation to the government. We have adhered to the motion. They told us to take it back, look at the facts, do that analysis and do the consultation. We are doing that right now.

It is, once again, incorrect for the Member to say that we do not bill private insurance. I just said that there are some things that the government has to provide that nobody else would pay. So you wouldn’t bill somebody for something that they wouldn’t be paying in the first place.

Supplementary health and entire health and social services sustainability is very important. As I’ve stated before, the Government of Ontario projects that they are going to be spending half of their entire budget on the health and social services system. We as Canadian people and NWT residents need to look at what...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We don’t have a problem with doing that. I think what I wanted to make sure that the Member knows is that we have not decided on how this is going to look. We haven’t decided that, Mr. Speaker. We have done the research and analysis that we were asked to do. I think the Member might think… The Member has suggested that the Minister knew what she wanted and engineered the research to look like that. I disagree with that. I believe any fair-minded people that look at the facts will see that the facts take us to a certain direction, and that’s what we want to take out to...

Mr. Speaker, I don’t know what he means by wasted money. Our government makes the investment of $326 million on our health care services, the services that our people need. People on the ground are working 24/7 to deliver the care that people need. Special services that we provide to Nunavut, those specialists work on contract with the GNWT and sometimes they have contracts with Nunavut. So I don’t think, you know, it doesn’t help the debate to mix up apples and oranges and throw out statements saying that we are wasting money.

With respect to supplementary health benefits, I believe that the...

If the Member read the public discussion -- perhaps he has, maybe wants to read it again -- there’s no mention there. I think anybody who’s had that presentation -- and we’ve had that presentation with the seniors, with Joint Leadership Council members -- it’s a good package of information to start a dialogue on.

I want to say it again, that we’re not proposing changes that take away benefits. What we are saying is we need to look at accessibility, who accesses that. And anybody who could afford to pay a co-payment or something, perhaps we should consider that. That is part of our discussion.

S...

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...