Tom Beaulieu

Yes, I would.

The federal portion of medical travel is $3.2 million. There are many factors that are involved in reducing medical travel costs. Inflation is an issue. Any contracts within the medical travel system could also be an issue, depending on how much we’re able to sign contracts for, such as medevac, ground services and so on. These are things that are very difficult to predict. Also, the usage of some of the systems that are made available, how effective they are at using the system. The electronic system is designed to reduce this and, actually, mainly designed to provide a better service to the...

We have that ability now. We are able to do multi-year funding project by project.

Thank you. I don’t know how long the promise of reviewing medical travel has gone on. I do know that at this time we are a bit behind in our schedule for reviewing medical travel. Like I indicated in the House yesterday, there are a lot of pressures in our system, a lot of pressures to do a lot of different things in the system. As we had the human resources in the department allocated to certain projects, this is one of the projects which is kind of stumbling out of the blocks, because there’s a lot of real high-priority issues for the department. We are planning to do a review of it and we...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Our first plan A is to try and retain the THSSI funding. We are on the schedule of the federal Minister, and when the federal Minister wishes to discuss the plan or the furtherance of the THSSI funding with us, then at that time we will have that discussion. If there is no discussion and the money is sunsetted or lapsed, then we will need to come back to the Legislative Assembly to fill the gaps. We really don’t think it’s an option to reduce medical travel by that amount. We really don’t think it’s an option to lay off six nurse practitioners. We really don’t think it...

We have no problem providing that information. If we are able to pull that information, the department is listening and is able to pull that information together before the end of the review, we will provide that in the House. If not, we will provide that to the Members at a later date.

If an emergency shelter was started in the Sahtu, then the O and M to operate that shelter would come back to the Assembly. There would be a determination of which department would support the shelter and then that decision would come back to the Assembly on how much support would be needed and what type of support would be issued to such a shelter.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the organization that is responsible for the day shelter here in Yellowknife tracks where the individuals are from. I don’t, unfortunately, have the breakdown with me in the House today of where each of those individuals are from.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I’m sure we will be covering a lot of these issues as we go through the detail of the business plan, but I will touch on some of the comments.

Midwifery was brought up fairly consistently. We are rolling out a plan. We have midwifery, yes, and we’ve had midwifery, yes, for quite a while, but we have a community midwifery program. We are trying to expand that into a regional midwifery program and ultimately a territorial midwifery program. We see quite a difference between a community midwifery program which is successful and a regional and then ultimately a territorial...

Yes I would, Madam Chair.