Bill Braden

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So having access, then, to the health care plan lists, of course there's the aspect of security in there and the protection of people's actual health care records. To what extent, Mr. Chairman, is that information protected from any outside source, of course, including the courts? What are the provisions for security and protection of privacy for those lists, Mr. Chairman?

My question is for the Minister responsible for the Workers' Compensation Board.

On October 23rd, in response to Question 162-15(5), the chronic pain policy, the Minister responsible for the WCB advised that there would be consultations on this very important issue.

When will this consultation take place?

What groups or interests will be consulted?

Will the Minister provide a copy of questions, which will be the basis for the consultation process?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Okay. So we still don't know exactly what the government's plans are with this, Mr. Speaker. I think in our deliberations on this, we had originally started out with a budget of $3.2 million and I’m wondering if the Minister can assure the Assembly that even after all these delays and the costs of inflation and things in construction, are we still going to be able to see this project achieved for that budgeted amount, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker, thank you. My questions this afternoon are again for Mr. Roland, the Minister of Health and Social Services. Mr. Speaker, it was about a year and a half ago that the government decided, surprised us all, actually, with a decision to relocate the Territorial Treatment Centre, a facility for children between the ages of eight and 14 who have severe behaviour disorders, to move this facility from Yellowknife to Hay River. In the meantime, or recently, Mr. Speaker, we were advised that there was a kind of a change in plans here. The government might be looking instead of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am well aware and I know my colleagues are well aware of the process. It is the struggle that we’re all engaging in to get those most needed facilities, those most urgent to the top of the process and that’s what we’re engaged in. Now, Mr. Speaker, the YACCS organization has provided an alternative by which they would finance the construction of this facility as an option to the government itself financing it. Is that a proposal that is under active consideration along with our own financing, Mr. Speaker?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question this morning is for Mr. Roland, the Minister of Health and Social Services. Mr. Speaker, our government, this government, recently advised the Yellowknife Association of Concerned Citizens for Seniors that it has decided not to commit to funding for a new dementia centre in our three-year capital plan. We cited other competing needs, Mr. Speaker, and the bulging costs of construction that are affecting virtually anybody who wants to get anything built in the North these days.

Mr. Speaker, the need for this kind of facility is amply demonstrated. It is not, I...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. It's my pleasure today to read into the record the report of the Accountability and Oversight committee of the review of the Report of the Auditor General on the Workers' Compensation of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

Mr. Speaker, the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight held its public reviews on the Report of the Auditor General on the Workers’ Compensation Board of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut from June 28 to 30, 2006, and on September 20, 2006. The committee was pleased that Mr. Keith Peterson, a Member of the Nunavut...

Thank you. That will do for now, Mr. Chairman.

Okay. So then the bill does not either restrict or enable this kind of thing to happen. It's simply silent on this aspect of dispensing drugs, Mr. Chairman. It's silent.

Mr. Chairman, I know one of the big intentions of revising this act was to reduce the paperwork, streamline the requirements that we had in previous laws making it easier on the tourism operator and I dare say on the government, the administrators, who didn’t have so much of this stuff to keep track of. Has this act resulted in a tangible and marked decrease in the paper burden, Mr. Chairman?