Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister’s initiative. Of course, students are on a budget, so a group plan might be something attractive.

I support the Minister’s review of the Medical Travel Policy including this apparent policy gap under the medical escort travel.

When will the Minister be seeking input on the draft results of the review from committee, and when can we expect it to be completed and implemented? Mahsi.

It was profiled in the Minister’s remarks today, so somewhere there’s a missing $350,000 here from the budget, I would assume. But it is a proposal and I guess I’ll just go ahead and talk about it a little bit here.

I am a little bit uncomfortable with that. The thing about the Executive is that they do deal with all aspects of government, as do non-governmental organizations. They deal with all areas of government and some non-government areas, of course. But MACA has, in the past, mostly focused on sport and NGOs that work in sport, so I think we would be losing something in the transfer from...

Thanks to the Minister. I know the Minister is keenly interested in this and very open to investigating and considering the various perspectives.

This review is a welcome one, of course, and long overdue. I’m sure that there are many people that could provide valuable insight and have experiences to relate, such as my constituents.

How is the Minister engaging the people of the North for input into this review? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That was page 135. Am I correct? I just wondered, and I’m sure there’s an explanation probably associated with devolution, but the big jump in the current fiscal year from about $6 million to about $17 million, a $10 million jump, if I can get an explanation for that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d also like to recognize Dr. Andre Corriveau, a resident of Weledeh and a well-known member of Yellowknife; also Julie Green who is also well known for all her work on the many social issues including the poverty one, but all the related ones, as well, housing and so on. Thanks to those for attending today. Mahsi.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the discussion that‘s just been had and I‘d like to just make a couple of comments and ask a question. First of all, I appreciate the deputy minister‘s recognition of the safety issue and his mention that really the best thing is to get people off the road, like, right away from that. There‘s no safe place to cross, Ms. Bisaro and the Minister are right, but there‘s also no safe place to walk on that highway and there are no options, so people have to and they are doing that. So it‘s a very unsafe situation. I know the deputy minister and Minister realize...

Thanks, Madam Chair, and thanks to the deputy minister for that. I’m wondering: is there an evaluation program in place for that and can the Minister commit to getting committee an update on that? I believe the deputy minister said it had been in place for five years. It seems due for a good review.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just one question on this page. I note a reduction of about 35 percent in facilities budget between the previous couple of years and this year. I’m just wondering if there’s a ready explanation for that decrease. Thank you.

Just to complete that, when can we expect that to be added in? Do we have a date on that? And, for that matter, do we have an amount on that yet?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to all my colleagues for their comments. I appreciate that the Minister is very active on this file. I won’t attempt to comment on this voluminous statement. I will look forward to studying that and getting on top of all those things. I speak very slowly, Mr. Speaker.

---Laughter

I do note the Minister is taking this very seriously. I guess the one point I would make is that this was brought to me by the staff. I don’t want to miss out on stressing the vulnerability that patients have to this violence and the need to recognize them in particular.

I think the...