Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. ITI, appropriation authority required, $11.909 million.

I’d like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. The committee report we have before us today is a report on the use of tablet computers in the Legislative Assembly. Mr. Hawkins.

I know we didn’t ask any other Members comments on Transportation but we have deferred it. We’re on ITI and we have just said agreed, but we will go to Ms. Bisaro.

I call the Committee of the Whole to order. We have numerous items that have been listed before us in Committee of the Whole today. What is the wish of the committee? Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to speak to this, pose a question on this. This was, of course, contemplated in the consideration of the supplementary appropriation coming forward. I think we’re missing the point of the question here. We have business plans. We plan. These are two high-level positions within the Department of Human Resources and this is being turned around to make it sound like, you know, we don’t think that Human Resources performs a valid function within the government or that the employees of Human Resources are not doing a good job. There is a norm in terms of a planning...

Okay. I’d like to ask the committee: Do you agree that we’ll defer the consideration of the interim appropriation for the Department of Transportation until Mr. Menicoche has the answers he’s seeking to his questions?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to direct my questions today to the Minister of Health and Social Services, the Honourable Tom Beaulieu. I want to follow up a little bit on some of my colleagues here who touched on the issue of alcoholism in the Northwest Territories and treatment for that condition.

We cannot deny that we have a disproportionate number of our people who are involved with an addiction to alcohol. We cannot deny that fact. It is a fact. It is a disproportionate number. We get somehow lulled into thinking that this is normal. This is not normal. If we had a health outbreak of...

Sorry. I was conferring with our clerks here and I didn’t realize that I was going to Mr. Abernethy, please.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister if he would commit to considering the surgery schedule for NWT residents from outside of the capital that would allow them, if necessary, to have their lab work done the same week as they’re having their surgery done, to prevent that travel, and if he would also investigate if somehow we could enhance the transmission of requisitions and results from lab procedures between health authorities.

May I suggest that getting a doctor to go to Hay River would also be inexpensive? I mean it would be expensive and cost prohibitive; sorry.

I was in Alaska once and had a medical test done, which was then beamed to a doctor at his house in Texas and who responded right back on what the answer was. I mean, we are only 100 miles away between Hay River and Yellowknife. Surely there’s a way that, okay, the guy doing the surgery, the doctor doing the surgery on the Monday morning wants certain tests done and lab work done. Why can those requisitions for lab work not be sent to Hay River, have the...