Bill Braden

Thank you. Yes. Well, let’s see if we can…okay. Madam Chair, we spent, according to the supplementary here, about 33 percent more than forecast with the Capital Health Authority of Alberta due to increased utilization and an increase in rates. This is a considerable jump from forecast. The information says that the approved budget was $12 million, the total projected costs for this year are $16 million, so we have a shortfall of $4 million. I’m wondering if the Minister could give a bit of detail on the increased utilization, as well as the jump in rates. Thank you very much.

Sorry, Madam Chair. I was following the pages here and didn’t quite get the break. I wanted to see if I could inquire into the additional costs for provision of hospital services from Alberta. This would be on page 10, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to confirm that this request is essentially a response of overwhelming popularity to try and keep the winter road open for as long as we can. In other words, Mr. Chairman, this is not driven by an unusually long spell of bad weather when the road was closed, a lot of overflow or something that cuts into the already planned item, we are just extending it because people like the road connecting. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So $300,000 is the request to restore the cash flow. For the total of this year, what was the total amount of doubtful accounts that was booked? I would just like to get a sense of how much over the forecast we are on this one. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Chairman, I guess I am surprised, quite surprised, if I hear the Minister right that we make no attempt whatsoever to get the best deal we can from suppliers where there is a competitive private market. Did I hear that right?

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. I will support this motion. I am sorry, supporting this bill. It is an area that I was involved in, in the last Assembly, Madam Chairperson, when this Assembly amended our adoption laws to legalize the adoption rights and responsibilities of a couple if they are of the same sex and recognizing how we are to manage and set laws for adopting children.

At the time, it was made quite clear that if we were to take that step, as we did, there would be further consequential changes to many of our other laws, which also needed to reflect the new definitions. There are...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think Mr. Ramsay has raised a flag on many of the same concerns or issues that I had with this. I am not going to object to these. This is a consequence of running our government as much as any businessperson or homeowner faces a consequence of keeping the fuel tank topped up.

I guess one area that I might ask about and I hope I am not duplicating something Mr. Ramsay has asked about, but are we trying to contract or buy forward with any of our fuel supplies, for any of our communities or major departments or do we more or less buy the fuel as and when needed at...

Mr. Speaker, what does the Minister see as the biggest barriers that we face in terms of trying to turn this really shameful statistic around? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That’s what I’m trying to get a handle on. What I’m hearing is through the social programs Minister you’ve identified a problem and you’re taking what appears to be some really proactive action on it. Is this something that through the course of the year you’ll be able to come back to, say Social Programs committee, and see where to go on this? I guess, Mr. Chairman, if we’ve identified a problem and we’re starting to address it how are we going to be able to manage it? Or is this just the start of another social dependency that even though we recognized it for...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight conducted its public review of Bill 21, An Act to Amend the Public Service Act, on March 7, 2005. The committee would like to thank the Union of Northern Workers for their presentation and the Minister and his staff for introducing the bill.

The committee is generally supportive of Bill 21, which will result in long overdue improvements to the staffing appeals process for public service jobs. The committee noted that many of the proposed changes to the process are not included in this bill and will instead be...