Sandy Lee

I will ask the deputy minister to give more details, but just to explain to the Members here, under the Foundation for Change, there is a work item there to review mental health programming. I was advised, after the deputy minister came on board, when she looked at all of the programs and we identified right away that this mental health program needed to be looked at very closely with a view of improving that and restructuring that, so we have undertaken those actions. I don’t know the process is in terms of getting the terms of reference reviewed and such. I don’t think that we do that for...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not familiar with the details of what the Member is suggesting. I would have to assume that was something that a physician might have done, but I will have to get more information from the Member and get back to him.

Mr. Chairman, yes.

Mr. Chairman, as the Member knows, that suggestion is one of a number of proposals that have been given to me that are under consideration. We are analyzing them and we will get back to members in committee on how and what options we have to make those happen. I am going to have to answer that in that way.

I do want to add a couple of things. The Member is right that the current legislation allows us to have children and family services committees. It is actually one of the pioneering and hallmark of this legislation that is different than many other legislations across the country. I was not...

I don’t believe we get separate funding for implementing a strategic document. There will be programs that we will have to go through a business plan process or we would have to do it internally, thank you.

I’ve already agreed to do that on many occasions and I’d be happy to meet with Members and the committee. The example that the Member presented here is a good example. I want to state that the department and government took every recommendation very, very seriously. We approached it in a very positive way. Our responses are about how do we make this happen. The Member raised a question about the way the law is right is it’s implicit. We would like to make it explicit. The example he gave is under section 7 of the act. It already states very explicitly that child protection has to, it must, it...

Mr. Chairman, we do support multiyear funding for NGOs. Not all NGOs are able or equipped to do that. We consider the multiyear funding arrangement on an NGO-by-NGO basis. We are currently reviewing our funding arrangement with NGOs in the department. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, that option is there but what I was speaking about is the fact that we are not going to have strength of a policy change to do the things that we had wanted to do under the Supplementary Health Policy. It was a package under the policy and the policy has been rescinded. Encouraging or asking companies to provide insurance is one option, but without policy change or more weight behind it, it will remain an encouragement.

Yesterday much of the discussion was about more direct involvement and interventional role by this government. I was saying that to do that, it will need a new...

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I am going to have to take that comment under advisement. I ‘m sorry; I’ll have to follow up. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, it has to go without saying that our system would rather hire our own local nurses before we would have agency nurses or locum nurses. So if there are any jobs that are...

Mr. Speaker, as I’ve stated, if the Member would listen, these nurse graduates don’t go through a regular hiring process; they go through a Graduate Employment Program. They go through a separate preferential program that the government has organized with HR, and HR people are talking to the graduating class. We are going to have a list of positions that could be matched up with them.

So, Mr. Speaker, I want to...