Sandy Lee

This is an area where expenditures are made on the basis of need. We place children and adults as they are needed. I can advise the Members that the numbers of clients have stayed quite consistent over the last number of years. There is a little bit of up and down, but there’s not a general trend upwards.

What we have seen is an increase in costs of caring for these children and adults. Some of them are quite high needs and it’s the rates that some of these facilities are charging us and they have all been going up, especially across Alberta. Thank you.

Could I ask if he is interested in the ones that we have direct dealings with and perhaps provide funding to? Also I need to clarify that we understand that they are not typical NGOs in communities and lots of our funding goes to community councils and community organizations and municipalities in all regions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To my left is deputy minister of Health and Social Services, Paddy Meade; and to my right is director of finance, Mr. Derek Elkin.

Thank you Mr. Chairman. I do have a copy of the business plan with me, but I am now looking at page 33 and I don’t see it, so I think it would be best if I could talk to her and see if we could give more information to each other.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would just like to add a very brief comment on this. First of all, for the record, MLA Krutko mentioned that there were Ministers, the Premier, Minister McLeod and Minister Miltenberger and other Ministers. I just wanted to say that I’m not trying to exclude myself, but just for the record...(inaudible)... that I was still in the Chamber when all of this happened. I was in the back lounge with MLA Beaulieu. So, obviously, that’s the record. Well, we were talking. So I have no information whatsoever about what went on.

Now, I just want to say, Mr. Speaker, in my...

Thank you. I have listened to him and I will follow up with him and see what we can do.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can’t remember exactly when that was but I could tell, I mean when that was stated, I could tell the Member that this is a cross-department initiative between Housing, ECE and Health and Social Services, so I would be happy to provide the Member with more info on that. That is about what I remember right now about what we talked about. Thank you.

Certainly, we wouldn’t want our front-line staff to be improvising use of equipment or their practices. They need to be supported and they are supported. I could think of the H1N1 as an example where there was regular support and clinical guidelines that went out to every support staff on an ongoing basis. I believe they are doing that with other issues of health care delivery. I will take that question, Mr. Speaker, from the Member and I will commit to making sure that our front-line staff are provided with the practice guidelines and the equipment they need to provide the care for people...

I can tell you that my deputy minister is part of that office space review and she will be putting input into that and we are involved. Secondly, absolutely, the hospital owns all the space so when it comes to planning for the building, that would be, obviously, in the equation. I mean, they would look at the entire parking lot and all the surrounding areas to see how they would design the facility. I need to say, once again, that it’s the function before the form. We are trying to determine the functions of the hospital. That is the most important part of that. That’s why it’s taking longer...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I indicated earlier, the homelessness budget we have is really popular. We usually get more applications than we have the money for. I think it is an area that we need to look to see how we can address that. I am talking to the Minister of the Housing Corporation to see how we can partner and put some energy into smaller communities. Yellowknife has been able to build a continuum of services for homelessness, but also… So that’s an area that we need to do. But I need to say that our budget, if you notice, as we stated in the opening statement, has almost… I know it...