Sandy Lee

Just one follow-up question. Could the Minister of Health indicate what the federal government's criteria was on choosing a facility and program? I don't know if that's the information that…I don't know that information, either. I'm not speaking from knowledge. But this particular facility at Great Slave sort of popped up and there were lots of renovations going on for awhile there, and I wonder if the Minister of Health could indicate what it was that the federal government was looking for in terms of criteria. Thank you.

Thank you. If the Minister could give the breakdown of where these projects are and what they were for, to all the Members, I’d appreciate that very much. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have just a short question on this issue of Northern Strategy trust fund money. I am happy to see that a number of communities have taken the step to tap into this funding. I am sure there are other communities to come here. I just would like to know, because I do not have any information about what sort of projects are being funded under this program. I just want to know what is going on in communities with this Northern Strategy money. Thank you.

Thank you on that. That’s fair enough. I’d be interested in looking at what the department finds out in that regard and see what happened there and what we find out. I guess this is an FMBS issue and not a Health and Social Services issue and I would like to ask the Minister to report to us through AOC or something. It would be interesting to know what happened there. Thank you.

Thank you. There are two issues with that. I guess one larger issue of health care delivery in general in that I know that the Minister of Health and Social Services had introduced aspects to the policy that was to work to reduce costs or at least better coordinate medical travel. I think he implemented a plan that sort of streamlined at least the authorizing process for medical travel, I think in the hopes of having better control over the medical travel in general. I understand that this is the employer’s portion of it. So I’d like to know if the Minister of Finance or Minister of Health...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On that, I understand these expenditures are for the increasing dental premiums and medical travel assistance. Is that right? I’d like to get some information on what the explanation is for these increases. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Just a couple of things I forgot to mention. One, of course, is to thank the Minister and the department for bringing this law forward and the second thing is with respect to when this bill will come to force. Mr. Chair, I think that is a very important issue in this regard. There are going to be requirements on the part of retailers on what to do and not to do as a fall-off on this legislation. I think it is only fair that we, as a Legislature, give them sufficient time and resources where feasible to do that. I think that a similar situation existed with the Personal...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think I am going to have to ask the Minister to be more forthcoming on exactly what his approach is and where this government stands on this issue. This government is not exactly a bystander on this file. This government has invested a lot of money and the well being of this cutting and polishing plant has many implications for us. I do understand. I don’t even want to call this a dispute. I see that there is a disagreement. I know this is a disagreement between two commercial companies. I want to respect their place in sorting that out, but I am still not...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Standing Committee on Social Programs held public hearings on Bill 16, Tobacco Control Act, on December 5, 2005, in Yellowknife; on December 6th in Enterprise and Kakisa; and on December 7th in Fort Providence and Behchoko. The clause-by-clause review of the bill took place in Yellowknife over two meetings on January 31st and February 9, 2006. The committee would like to thank all of the people who spoke to the bill during our public meetings.

The committee heard strong support for Bill 16 from representatives of the Canadian Public Health Association, the NWT...

Mr. Speaker, what this shows me is if we can just work through the manmade barriers, women will always achieve in spectacular fashion for the entire country and mankind.

---Applause