Glen Abernethy

My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services and are based on my Member’s statement from earlier this afternoon. I was wondering if the Minister of Health could tell me what, if any, financial analysis was prepared and utilized by Cabinet to help them make an informed decision and responsible decision to implement the Supplementary Health Benefits Program announced on December 18th, 2008.

I won’t take too long. I have two sentences left.

This is clearly nothing more than a delay tactic. If the timeline is upheld, the Regular Members won’t have an opportunity to debate the program until after it has been implemented. This is inappropriate. Mr. Speaker, I’ll have questions on this topic for the Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services at the appropriate time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in your announcement, you indicated, the Minister indicated that she’s going to be releasing the program, the revised program on September 1, 2009. In my Member’s statement I indicated that I don’t believe that’s a reasonable timeline. I was wondering if I could get the Minister to commit to extending the implementation date to April 1, 2010, at the very earliest and that during the research and facilitation…Sorry, and doing the research and facilitating real consultation with affected stakeholders which will result in an acceptable Supplementary Health...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Clearly it is not the motive of the Cabinet to chase them away, but their actions are, in fact, going to chase people away. The announcement in 2007, you haven’t mentioned any financial analysis. You keep saying analysis. You are now moving forward and you’ve indicated that you are going to do consultation. You indicated that you have done consultation in the past, which clearly was more of an information session. Can you tell me how this time around you are going to do meaningful consultation with the stakeholders? That doesn’t mean you are just going to tell me you...

My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services and are based on my Member’s statement from earlier this afternoon. I was wondering if the Minister of Health could tell me what, if any, financial analysis was prepared and utilized by Cabinet to help them make an informed decision and responsible decision to implement the Supplementary Health Benefits Program announced on December 18th, 2008.

I won’t take too long. I have two sentences left.

This is clearly nothing more than a delay tactic. If the timeline is upheld, the Regular Members won’t have an opportunity to debate the program until after it has been implemented. This is inappropriate. Mr. Speaker, I’ll have questions on this topic for the Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services at the appropriate time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Friday, February 6th, 2009, I’ll move the following motion: Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Hay River South, that this Legislative Assembly recommends that the Minister of Health and Social Services stop the implementation of the proposed Supplementary Health Benefits Program and develop a new policy and program to cover low-income families who do not have supplementary health benefits coverage through their employer;

And further, extend the September 2009 implementation date to April 2010;

And further, conduct...

Sorry.

Thanks for that response. I was kind of curious as to what kind of financial analysis was done and presented to Cabinet to help them make a decision, an informed decision. Clearly there was none. Just as a note, I disagree. I believe this program change is occurring on the backs of the seniors as well as those individuals with family members with chronic conditions. You are taking money out of one pocket to put it in another. So since I am not going to get an answer to that first question, I’ll ask my second question.

When the Minister presented the proposed program to Cabinet in 2008, did the...

There are a lot of people I’d like to recognize in the gallery, but for the sake of time I’ll just focus on three constituents. I’d like to recognize Bob Malloy, Loretta Gamble, and Theresa Crane.