Tom Beaulieu

The evaluation process is very critical in the RFP. The evaluation is going to give us a very clear indication of where the medevacs are coming from. If the Member from the Sahtu is accurate in his thinking, then, yes, many of the issues resulting from perhaps unrestricted alcohol sales and many people, just many people, period, in the area as a result of resource development, then it is possible that many of the medevacs will originate out of the Sahtu communities. That would be in the evaluation.

When we put out the RFP, I think there’s an indication in the RFP as some background information...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is a priority of this government that children get the best possible start in life so they can reach their full potential. It is important that we continue investment in early childhood development as this is an investment in the future of our children.

In January of this year, in partnership with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, we hosted a roundtable to identify priorities for a renewed Early Childhood Development Framework. I’m pleased to report that the roundtable was a success.

I know the Members of this House that attended the roundtable would...

We are just starting to put the pieces of this review together now. The position will come on, hopefully, soon in the new fiscal year. We believe that it will take all of the 12 months in that fiscal year to complete this review.

Yes, Madam Chair. To my right is Debbie DeLancey, deputy minister of Health and Social Services. To my left is Jeannie Mathison, director of finance, Health and Social Services.

We will definitely be evaluating the systems that we employ. We think that an essential part of introducing new systems. We don’t have estimates but we are trying to move forward on these things. Some of our activities we’re trying to move forward on. We’re told to stop evaluating and move forward. If we don’t evaluate and move forward, we’re told we’re not evaluating. So here are some of the decisions that we’re making. We’re moving forward on this because we think that the system, without a thorough analysis on whether or not this system is going to save money and exactly how much money it’s...

My understanding is there is no cap in as far as time, but the flow of the funding within that agreement is contingent upon approvals in the Assembly.

Yes, we will continue to employ common sense. The medical travel, we must remember that many individuals who have their opinion on medical travel is based on what they have gone through themselves. There are many, many, many scenarios with medical travel. We have to look at all of them. We also have to take into account the delivery of the program, the politics of it, the regulations. All of those aspects are things that we’re looking at to try and make it more efficient, and to develop a policy that does have common sense and is responsible through the government.

Just off the top of my head, a lot of the prevention work will reduce medical travel. Electronic medical records will reduce medical travel. E-health also will reduce medical travel. The TSN, I think we have a different name for that now, Territorial Support Network, where there’s a doctor on call who is able to assist people in remote communities through the telehealth system. Those items are intended to reduce the cost of medical travel. Otherwise we’re back to, without THSSI funding, the increase in the Canada Health Transfer will probably end up filling the gaps in 2014-2015.

Along those lines, we have recently hired an official languages manager. That was with the intention of updating our services on the official languages. We are also running a medical terminology specific to cancer, in Fort Good Hope as a pilot. Once the workshop is able to come back to us with terminology that we should be using to describe some of the things related to cancer, we will see the success of that type of workshop and then expand on that.

As a Minister of Health, I’m trying to develop things today that will have a savings in the future. I recognize that the Minister of Finance has done the tour on the ways that they can put the savings into the budget and, as the Member indicates, a lot of them are related to Health as a department, and consulting with my senior managers and finding out how do we think that we can meet some of the objectives of the people in the Territories and that’s what we’re doing. We’re putting together things that we think are huge cost drivers in the system and we’re trying to curb that now so that they...