David Ramsay

Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Numerous other Members have asked questions today about the supplementary health benefits and the proposed changes to those. Part of the big issue that I’m having with this is the analytical work, the work that somebody inside of the Department of Health and Social Services is, and should be, conducting on this. I don’t know how the Minister and the government could go public with a policy as half-baked and disjointed as this policy is. The Minister announced it in December and here we are the first week of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to present a petition dealing with the matter of changes to seniors’ Health Benefits Program. The petition contains 727 signatures of NWT residents, broken down from the following communities: Fort Good Hope, 35; Inuvik, 57; Fort Resolution, 25; Fort Smith, 320. That’s a total 727 signatures. The petitioners request that the GNWT stop the implementation of the Supplementary Health Benefits Program and Catastrophic Drug Program, and that the Government of the Northwest Territories conduct public consultations with all groups in the Northwest Territories before...

Mr. Speaker, the income thresholds proposed are miserably low. Means testing individuals or families dealing with chronic illness is something we certainly need to re-examine. As a government, we cannot continue to make half-baked policy decisions that detrimentally affect the psyche and feelings of our residents. We need to keep people here in the North, not keep looking for creative ways to drive people away. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, again, I do find it hard to believe that we don’t know and we can’t guess. Maybe now that we’re looking at income testing, I think there are other ways we can model this. We can find out -- and I agree with the Minister -- if low-income earners and low-income families are the area that we need to address as a government, we should be doing that. We should find out how many people there are in that segment and find out what it costs. That’s what we’re asking for here.

While I’m talking about cost, I want to ask the Minister what work is the Department of Health and Social Services...

Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Numerous other Members have asked questions today about the supplementary health benefits and the proposed changes to those. Part of the big issue that I’m having with this is the analytical work, the work that somebody inside of the Department of Health and Social Services is, and should be, conducting on this. I don’t know how the Minister and the government could go public with a policy as half-baked and disjointed as this policy is. The Minister announced it in December and here we are the first week of...

Mr. Speaker, the income thresholds proposed are miserably low. Means testing individuals or families dealing with chronic illness is something we certainly need to re-examine. As a government, we cannot continue to make half-baked policy decisions that detrimentally affect the psyche and feelings of our residents. We need to keep people here in the North, not keep looking for creative ways to drive people away. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your committee has been considering Bill 6, Species at Risk NWT Act, and wishes to advise that additional time is required to complete this review.

Mr. Speaker, I know the Minister has just announced this new work that the department is working on on the renegade health care card issue. That’s news to me. Also news to me lately is the announcement that we’re losing our chief medical officer and that the government had signed a physicians’ contract. They don’t tell us, we find out in the press. That’s the way this government operates, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, there are only 42,000 residents here in the Northwest Territories and I find it completely absurd that the Minister cannot answer a question about how many people this will impact. She talks about low-income earners and families. How many of those people are there in our Territory and where are they? She can’t answer that question.

Also, I haven’t heard the Minister give us an answer as to her assertion that this move is cost neutral. Where is that evidence, Mr. Speaker? I’d like to see it, and so would everybody else. It just hasn’t been proven.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your committee has been considering Bill 6, Species at Risk NWT Act, and wishes to advise that additional time is required to complete this review.