Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this bill asks us to approve spending $165 million on the Deh Cho Bridge. It’s a yes or a no decision so it should be seen as a simple one, but as we heard through our discussions on Tuesday afternoon, it’s anything but simple. There are many, many questions from Regular Members which remain as yet unanswered, not because Ministers don’t want to provide the answers but because they can’t. They don’t have the information to pass on to us. Negotiations aren’t finalized so the status of the Bridge Corp is unknown. Deficiency tests aren’t completed so the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to deal with the motion I gave notice of earlier today.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister for that. I already knew that number. She is referencing the number of people who are currently accessing the system. There are others who are not. I think it is incumbent upon the government to estimate those people who are not currently covered, who are not currently accessing the system so that we can then know what kind of costs we are incurring.

I would like to know from the Minister... We are going to have consultation. We are going to consider input, presumably. We are going to make a decision and draft a new program. I would like to ask the...

Mr. Speaker, I don’t think there was any reference to my question in there, but I will just kind of carry on.

To the Minister’s comment that I know where things are going, I know where the department wants us to think we are going. I know where the paper wants us to think we are going. I would like to say to the Minister we got some financial information the other day, some income threshold information, and I’d like to thank the Minister for that information that we got the other morning, but it presented almost more questions than it answered.

I would like to know from the Minister, because we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a couple of hardworking Pages today from the constituency of Frame Lake: brother and sister Stuart Hamre and Martha Hamre have been working very hard for us this week.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister as well. I guess I would encourage the Minister to consider there may be cases where sending a patient south might actually speed things up and, if that is the case, I would encourage the Minister to consider doing that. I understand it’s probably unlikely, but we have to keep all doors open, in my mind.

The Minister mentioned something about wait times are about changing the system. If we have wait times as long as a year for one particular speciality, I’m sure there are others that happen to be longer. I would like to ask the Minister what we as...

Thanks to the Minister. I would appreciate knowing whether or not we do have certain standards which are out there which we should attempt to adhere to. I do remember a conversation from a couple of years ago on the federal scene that we were trying to reduce wait times for patients. I’d be interested in seeing standards, if there are any.

The concern for my constituent, in October of 2008 he was advised that it was a one-year wait to see an orthopaedic specialist. I wonder if the Minister could tell me what kind of a wait it is at this particular time now that we’re in March of 2010.

Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Minister. I understand that things are being negotiated and so on, but I guess I am concerned, as I mentioned in my statement, that we are entering into this project. We are, at this point, backstopping the project without any sort of financial safeguards. I think the Premier mentioned yesterday, in response to a question from Mr. Abernethy, that some part of this project is coming up to this government for approval in the near future. Could I get an explanation of what he meant by that? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for that explanation. It doesn’t really help me much. It’s going to be an awfully long time before we get any money back, but I guess I have to assume that eventually we will get back our $13 million.

I mentioned in my statement that one of the bullets on a presentation that we received some time last year was that there needs to be the GNWT to backstop this project for construction. I’d like to ask the Minister to explain what that means. Are we providing a financial guarantee to the Taltson Expansion Project? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we consider the difficulties encountered by the Deh Cho Bridge Project and the resulting financial implications for this government, my mind cannot help but jump to another large project that this government is involved in. Of course, I speak of the Taltson Hydro Expansion Project. I, too, will weigh in on this subject today.

We MLAs have had quite a few briefings and updates on the Taltson project over the last two years that I’ve been here. As I cleaned up my office last week I found a few of those update documents. Interesting reading, they were. As mentioned by Mr...