Robert Hawkins

Mr. Chairman, that is fine. If it is just evergreening, are we talking about office equipment? It says medical supply. That is fine. I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t...

Seeing how I have the mike, can the Minister provide me some, maybe, examples of what they would define as medical equipment under this evergreening process? Are we talking about beds? Are we talking about those specific programmings? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services regarding the Stanton deficit, which harkens back to my Member’s statement where I am significantly concerned that Stanton has missed 10 out of 11 budget years in the sense that they’ve found ways to create deficits without stopping them. Mr. Speaker, they need to be applauded for that one year that they let the board fire itself. It seemed they knew what was going on, because it showed that they weren’t in deficit that year, but they continue to accumulate with no one willing to stop it.

Mr. Speaker...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The way this Minister and the previous governments have been managing the health system is supplementary appropriation. That is how they are managing the funding problem.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister seems to hearken quite clearly about you have to do zero-based budget review. She is the one who has a deputy minister who said they did this. So they should know on what positions cost and they should fund them properly. They should know what all of these items cost and fund them. That is the issue.

Mr. Speaker, how many unfunded positions are not accounted for? How many...

Well, Mr. Speaker, financially, it’s like the government wants to run this ship to the ground. I mean, 10 out of 11 budget years a deficit and we’re not even including the one that’s just past, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with all this so-called review that they don’t care about how much money they spend, what has the management learned and done? In other words, what management and financial controls have been put into place to ensure that we have that so-called zero-based budget review that was done, that it was not money out the window and a waste of time? What are they doing to plug the leaks...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to talk about the continued deficit at Stanton Hospital. Between the budget years of 1999 and 2000 to the budget year of 2009-2010, which is 11 budget cycles, Stanton has all but one fiscal year been in deficit. That is one year that they did not have a single deficit, Mr. Speaker. It is hard to imagine 11 budget cycles. From what I can tell, it was the one budget year that the Stanton board fired itself, oddly enough.

For 11 years, what have they been doing over there? Adding up each unbudgeted deficit year after year, Stanton has accumulated, if you...

She should be doing something, Mr. Speaker. What has she been doing?

Mr. Speaker, I have said many times that I believe Stanton is underfunded. I think a zero-based review would actually clear any air or question on that particular problem. The problem is everyone seems to know that there are problems but no one is doing anything about their problems. We hear about we have done a review. Now, we hear, out of the blue, a zero-based review is done through the years. We have no facts on the table where they have stopped the leakage. By the way, all it is is just an accumulation of protecting the process than it is about doing anything. Mr. Speaker, is Stanton or...

Mr. Chairman. Perhaps the more efficient way of doing it is making it a part of our service level agreements we’ve cast in...(inaudible)...some type of compromised negotiation in having the agencies that we actually negotiate directly with. In other words, the Department of Health directly negotiates and draws up service level agreements with certain groups. Why don’t we have them have these groups phone people as part of the Aftercare Program on a contiguous basis of some manner to make sure people are on track with their programming? Would it not serve some interest in everyone’s efforts, be...

What’s stopping the department from making it part of the programming dollars we supply to various service agencies that provide addictions treatment and support for obligating them as part of the service agreement to provide an aftercare phone line for people to talk about, perhaps, the strains of fighting their addictions? If it’s good enough for Poundmaker outside of Edmonton to have a follow-up line where they actually do follow-up calls and whatnot to ensure the clientele have gone through their program so that they know they’re still supported outside once they’ve finished the program...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Recently I have inquired with the Department of Health and Social Services to follow up on some costing and focus on what we do for the Quitline and that would, of course, be people who have quit smoking. As many of us know, I guess it is a cessation phone line you call to speak about your woes of smoking cigarettes. I haven’t called it myself so I don’t specifically know, but I believe it’s set up in that context.

As I’ve learned from the Department of Health and Social Services, the response from the Minister, I believe $24,000 has gone to radio advertising and there...