Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d forgotten what I wanted to ask but I did remember. I just wanted clarification on Mr. Bromley’s question to the cost of physician services. The Minister mentioned that on page 8-21 it was physicians inside and outside the NWT, which is, give or take, $47 million, but on page 8-22 there are hospital services for $79 million and physician services to residents for almost $38 million. Both reference physicians, one in hospitals and one not. Is it $47 million for physicians or is it more like the $117 million that’s on page 8-22? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, thanks for the comments. I don’t doubt that there has been progress. I guess I am just looking to see that that progress is reflected in the various authorities’ budgets. I think I heard the deputy minister say that there has been some.

I did want to ask, as well, about the client navigator position. My understanding from previous information, I believe, is that the client navigator position is going to be dropped in this budget. I have a concern. I’d like to know a couple of things. Just what is the job of the client navigator, and the second part is that I understand it’s going...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a couple of questions here. We talked, I guess it was just yesterday. It feels like a week ago when we talked about the deficits in the Beau-Del Health and Social Services Authority and the Stanton Health Authority. I wonder if the Minister could advise whether or not there is a debt reduction plan for each of those health and social services authorities to deal with their debt and their deficit. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Thursday, February 10, 2011, I will move the following motion: I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that the Speaker be authorized to set such sitting days and hours as the Speaker, after consultation, deems fit to assist with the business before the House.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Premier again. I didn’t, unfortunately, hear an answer to my question. I do hope that the Premier will reconsider this proposed round of consultation and change it to be more meaningful.

I’d like to know from the Premier if this working group and advisory group and whoever else may be involved will be able to give us a definition of poverty prior to September 2011.

Thanks to the Premier. I have to disagree. I think the original Anti-Poverty Alliance is a large group, but it’s not all of the members of the Anti-Poverty Alliance who needed to be on the government’s working group. They certainly would have been happy with a couple of representatives who were not government members.

I think the Premier also suggested that all of the recommendations from the anti-poverty report, the No Place for Poverty report, needed to be accepted by the government and that’s not true. I think if the report is read carefully, there are a couple of priorities that the report...

I’ll have to go and check Hansard tomorrow, but I don’t believe in either of my questions I mentioned the words “working poor.” I’ll leave it at that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to welcome and recognize Mr. Dave Reid, the president of the NWT Teachers’ Association.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have one question. I wanted to follow up to the questions and answers from Mr. Bromley earlier relative to the possible changes to the Extended Health Benefits Program and the concern I think that all Members have with those who are not currently covered. I don’t think there was any argument during the debate on the changes to the Supplementary Health Program that we did not want to cover those people who aren’t covered, and if I understood the Minister correctly, I heard her say that there will not be any consideration of how to cover those people until the 17th...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Forty years ago Canada initially started its fight against poverty with the founding of the National Poverty Foundation, now called Canada Without Poverty. Forty years ago a special senate committee on poverty published a report, a report which opened with the words, “Poverty is the great social issue of our time. Unless we act now, nationally, in a new and purposeful way, five million Canadians will continue to find life a bleak, bitter and never-ending struggle for survival.”

We haven’t made much progress on poverty as a country in the last 40 years, Mr. Speaker, and...