Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Unfortunately, this expenditure will drive us well beyond our supplementary reserve. In fact, it blows it right out of the water. In the supportive documents, I keep seeing the word shortfall. What’s happened here is we have done a very shoddy job on budgeting. This is riddled with examples of entirely predictable costs and it reflects to me a really irresponsible approach to budgeting in the first place, and here we are again putting our supplementary reserve into major deficit. This isn’t the first time this has been brought up. We have been bringing this up repeatedly...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe my amendment to the amendment is now before the House, but I will repeat it.

I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Frame Lake, that the amendment to Motion 13-17(5) be amended by adding the following after the phrase “first paragraph after the resolution portion of the motion”: and replacing them with the words “before that group begins in that community”. I would like to speak to the motion, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I see this is a request for Medical Travel Program costs. Again, I’m disappointed here. Basically we have poured in, in both during the 16th and 17th Assemblies, tens of millions of dollars to increase the efficiency of our medical travel system. Specifically on electronic medical records, telehealth, call forward physician access, community pharmaceutical supplies, community electronic imaging capacity. I am just again wondering what’s happening here on the increasing costs that we’re seeing, or is it a budgeting issue? I understand that Stanton Territorial Hospital...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This phrase is awkward, but it is the kernel of the motion, I believe. I think what Mr. Menicoche is saying, and I agree, is we don’t want the whole program stopped if some community, JK group, doesn’t have an ECE worker. It’s just that that particular JK group should not go ahead until there is an early childhood education worker. On that basis, Mr. Chair, I would like to propose an amendment to the amendment. Mahsi.

Thanks for that information. It sounds like we’re never allowed to get ahead. We’re allowed to count for what the actual costs are this year through this unfortunate process, but wouldn’t it be great if we could do it at the beginning of the year so that we actually knew what our costs were roughly? We might even feed back a few thousand bucks at the end of the year, who knows? But I would be happy with a conservative estimate of increases based on our experience. It would just greatly reduce these sorts of costs, or at least adjustments. Thank you.

To the Minister, we’ve heard all about this amazing and costly maze of support, ineffective supports, that we have out there. We’re trying to move on here.

There are additional supports available to people in poverty, such as the GST rebate and the child tax credit. Despite their intent to help, our system takes that money away from families. I very much doubt that the money we save from chasing after these meagre funds even covers the cost of the government workers chasing after them.

How can the Minister justify clawing back payments that are meant to alleviate poverty when people are already...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know these costs are always going up. Is this amount generally going up from year to year, the $22.9 million, for example? Are we always requesting these extra dollars for the increased costs? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are in follow up to my statement earlier today on poverty traps and directed to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Yesterday and today I think I made it clear that our social safety net has some pretty serious poverty traps in it, but I would like to give the Minister a chance to demonstrate differently. We track people on income support more than anyone else in the NWT. We know month by month what is in their bank account.

Will the Minister tell us how many people our system has helped rise out of poverty in the last year or any year?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I believe this is dealing with increased costs for health care services, non-NWT residents and NWT residents, and I believe we are collecting or recovering costs for the non-NWT residents. Is the amount that we are increasing for health care services provided to residents outside the NWT? Is this above normal and what is the full expenditures for that item, the increased costs for health care services outside the NWT? Rather than the increase, what is the full cost to give some context to that $3.775 million? Thank you.

I cannot think of a single reason why Charles could not get the help he needs through a similar system. There is no difference between the cost of living tax credit and an income support payment. It all comes from the same pot. So let’s treat everyone with the same respect and help people get back on their feet instead of psychologically trapping them in poverty.

I will have questions and I will have more on this tomorrow. Mahsi.