Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the committee would like to continue with the consideration of the O and M budgets for the Department of Transportation and then continue on today with the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment. Thank you.

We have a lot of students from the North who do attend post-secondary facilities in Alberta. It seems to almost be a destination of choice. I don’t have any statistics to bear that out. Where a constituent or resident can prove a cost savings to the government, the cost to get from Grande Prairie to Edmonton to see a specialist is a lot less than getting from Hay River to Edmonton. Where it is an absolute, undeniable, proven case of where it would cost less to waive the policy about it having to originate in the Northwest Territories, would this not be something that the Minister could simply...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. It has to do with our medical travel. We have a very comprehensive Medical Travel Policy in the Northwest Territories and I would suggest that most of the time it works really, really well. Occasionally, though, we bring to the floor of this House some anomaly, some glitches where there are problems.

The policy is well-known that if somebody requires medical travel it has to originate within the Northwest Territories. However, this does not address the situation that I described today in my Member’s...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as a Member who’s been here quite some time, I think that Mr. Miltenberger has taken the opportunity to raise a point of order to, in fact, correct the record on a certain matter and I’m not sure that that actually constituted, in my experience, in my opinion, a point of order. I suppose if each one of us stood up on a point of order every time somebody said something in this House that was not correct, we’d be standing up a lot.

I appreciate the fact that Mr. Bromley did err in his assumption or his assertion on this particular matter and has withdrawn his...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The committee would like to consider the Department of Environment and Natural Resources budget along with, if possible and time permitting, moving onto the Department of Transportation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

There are no doubt, I mean, the Medical Travel Policy is, no doubt, a very expensive policy and very expensive exercise of the Department of Health and Social Services because we do live in the North and we are remote from some of the very specialized services that are required by our constituents. It’s a very large ticket item. It’s very expensive. Sometimes things are done which might actually seemingly waste money, but the opportunity to save money is here before us.

I’d like to ask the Minister if there is anyone within the organization who looks after medical travel or medical insurance...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a constituent who is a student attending full-time studies at the Grande Prairie Regional College in Grande Prairie, Alberta. My constituent had a medical specialist appointment booked in Edmonton. She had gone through the appropriate channels for this appointment. She had been seen by a doctor in Hay River, referred to Yellowknife, and in turn received a referral to a specialist in Edmonton. When booking her medical travel for her appointment in Edmonton, she was informed that she could not access assistance from where she was attending school because medical...

Mr. Chairman, I move that we report progress.

---Carried

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. the committee would like to continue today with the departments of Municipal and Community Affairs and then Environment and Natural Resources, in that order and see what kind of progress we can make today. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Transportation today and it is not about the bridge.

I’m not fond of flying. Something about flying through the air, being hurtled through the air at 500 miles an hour in a culvert with a cone on the front doesn’t really make sense to me. But I had occasion to hear a radio interview not so many months ago and something caught my attention that kind of caused me some concern. I’ve been mulling it over. I think the young man that was being interviewed said that he had a problem with a crack-cocaine addiction and that he had been working...