The changes to the Canada Health Act affect all the provinces and territories in exactly the same way. The magnitude might be different because of the size of the police force and the RCMP in each of the jurisdictions. The Ministers of Justice across the territories raised these concerns at one of their FTPs and it was pretty clear that the federal government was going to be moving ahead with this regardless, and those costs are now, as Mr. Dolynny indicated, downloaded on to the Government of the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I talked about the Minister’s Forum on Addictions and Community Wellness and the 12 individuals who helped us with that. Today I’d like to recognize Paul Andrew, who is the chair of the forum, and thank him for all of his hard work and that of his colleagues. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Since April 1, 2013, we have been providing those services and paying for those services. Prior to that we were providing those services and invoices were sent to the RCMP to recoup our costs. That no longer happens.

There are a variety of conditions that our residents may be facing with respect to health. I know that we are doing a significant number of things around cancer and have cancer support groups and other groups and mechanisms that are available to individuals that are suffering from particular conditions. If the Member has some other conditions or some specific conditions that he would like to talk about, I would certainly be open to that discussion and encourage him to come down the hall and we can have that conversation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is a policy in place. I do acknowledge that the policy is quite old, and we have heard significant feedback from residents from across the Northwest Territories that it does need to be reviewed. We have committed to doing that review. I did meet with Members in January to talk about the review, the timeline for the review. We will have a policy, a redrafted policy shortly, and from there we will have an opportunity to discuss and go out for consultation on the individual components which do include escorts. We will have an opportunity to amend that portion of the...

Those discussions still need to be had and ironed out, for the most part. We do know we want to, and must, maintain regional and community input, but every region and every authority that exists today is different and has a different catchment area, and the individuals that need to be represented may be different, so it’s not going to be one model fits all. We’re going to have to talk to the people from the Deh Cho with respect to that particular area, as we’ll need to talk to the people from the Tlicho, the Sahtu, the Beaufort-Delta as well as Yellowknife. We need to have those discussions...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are committed to ensuring that we have mechanisms that allow the voice of the people to be heard with respect to health and social services authorities. The Member is right; we do have a public administrator providing us the direction from the Dehcho at this point in time. We are exploring options for changing our structure so that we can provide better health, better care and better results for our residents throughout the Northwest Territories. In that model, I believe and I’m committed to ensuring that the people for the regions and the communities continue to...

I am happy to work with the Member. I am happy to walk down the hall to his office. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

At the invite of the community or the Member, I’m happy to visit his constituency and talk about any issues that the residents may have. Thank you.

Where it’s medically necessary for an individual to come from one community and reside in another community on a permanent basis where the services are, we do provide financial supports and assistance to help those individuals get here, but it’s got to be medically necessary. Thank you.