Wendy Bisaro

I’ll try again. Mr. Minister, I know that the program is funded by the feds. I do know as well that it is supported by the Department of Education, but also know that when non-Aboriginal students apply they are on a very low priority and it totally depends on whether or not there’s any space. My understanding is that there’s some waiting list of about 20, I think, persons trying to get into the next application for the Underground Miner Training Program. So if anybody wants to get into that and they’re non-Aboriginal, they don’t have a hope.

I also know that as much as a year ago, I think it...

That’s fine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate that there’s going to be some work done. The Minister said at that time, so does that mean that we’re going to wait until 2012 to do something or will there be some work that’s done in the near future and when can Members expect some kind of a report on these programs?

That’s clear but I don’t think I heard that yesterday. When I asked yesterday what the $400,000 is going to be used for in the 2011-2012 budget, I thought I heard that that $400,000 was going to the schools. Could I find out what the $400,000 is going to be used for this coming budget year?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wonder in looking at the numbers on this page, our loans receivable over the last three years has gone up almost $1 million a year. The loans granted have gone up I guess by about a hundred a year. In looking at these I just wonder whether or not this program is sustainable at the pace at which we are increasing. I know we increased the borrowing limit for the Student Financial Assistance Fund sometime in the last year or so. I guess bottom line is, will this be part of the student financial assistance review, and second question is, is this fund sustainable as...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Minister I would like to say that I would hope that when we have a new contractor, we would be proactive and we would be checking up to make sure that things are working okay. I appreciate the Minister’s commitment to do some sort of an evaluation. That was my next question. So I wish her to confirm that either she or the hospital will do a brief evaluation of the contractor and the service to date, and will she report those findings to the House? Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Just a question with regard to the amount for student grants. We’ve got $9 million here on page 10-28 and then on page 10-27 student financial assistance is almost $12.4 million dollars. So is student financial assistance costing us the $12 million plus the $9 million? Thank you.

Thank you. I think the Minister missed my point. I have no concerns with the process. I never once mentioned the process. My concern is that a request for tender does not get us the evaluation of the contractor that we should be getting. It doesn’t allow us to look at all aspects of the service that we’re asking for. I know that the northern agencies were given preferential treatment, that was made very evident to me and I have no concern with that.

It’s been about a month now since that contract has been awarded and I now understand that some of our medical travel staff are experiencing some...

That’s good to hear. Twenty-two committees. We have more than 22 communities. Are we going to have an appeals committee in each community or will there be some serviced regionally?

The medical travel contract is a service and people-oriented agreement. The buyer -- that would be Stanton Hospital -- should take that into consideration when evaluating bids. A tender can’t do that because the tender has only one criterion: the price. On the other hand, a proposal is judged on many things: service, track record and competent staff being three of them. I suspect that we will soon be hearing of difficulties in the medical travel office: inefficiencies, delays, extra workload for staff. I don’t wish for it but when it happens, I will try not to say I told you so.