Glen Abernethy

I’m going to have to get that information from the Member because I’m not sure what he’s actually talking about.

That’s fine. We can do that.

I do, Mr. Chair.

Stanton manages their contract and their employees with respect to the bio-med services, I do believe. They do provide services to Nunavut but it’s the same way they provide services to the other authorities. They have contracts with those authorities and they staff based on the contracts that they have for provision of services.

Once again the Member can correct me if I’m wrong; it sounds like he’s asking us to provide what we’ve billed and what we’ve received on a historic basis. I’d be happy to do so.

I was one of the Members who actually participated in the review of the child and family services delivered by the Government of the Northwest Territories in the last Assembly and I am aware of all those recommendations. Since I’ve become the Minister, I have had an opportunity to follow up with the department to see where we are on a number of those recommendations. There has been a lot of work in the background being done, but there is a lot of work that still needs to be done and, obviously, we still need to continue to make improvements. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, as I indicated, they staff based on demand, and demand does include Nunavut residents who are coming for services. Granted, those numbers are fairly low. Most of our residents, the vast majority, are obviously from the Northwest Territories. If there were no Nunavut patients, we may be in a position where there would be fewer employees at Stanton because we would have less demand. Stanton bases their employment structure and how many people they staff based on their demand.

I think I’m saying what the Member is saying. It doesn’t have an adverse effect on our residents because, if...

Mr. Chair, we have no indication that we haven’t collected all of our dollars, recognizing that the inter-jurisdictional reciprocal agreements are negotiated every year, but we do collect all the dollars based on what we are able to charge based on the agreements we have in place.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I remember during the last Assembly there was a lot of discussion around this because there was a fair amount owing at a particular point in time and there were some issues. I believe those issues, actually I know those issues were resolved before the end of the last government. Right now we have an inter-jurisdictional agreement that’s based on cost recovery. We don’t make money on this from Nunavut, but at the same time other provinces don’t make money off of us when our residents are receiving services out of jurisdiction. We collect the dollars, as I said to Mr...

Those numbers are provided as money owed from Nunavut to the GNWT for a variety of services, not all health related, to government as a whole.