Sandy Lee

I don’t think this is a question of lack of detail. I think that I can explain the details. I don’t even know if I have enough time, Mr. Speaker. I have said it’s already been said that THAF was until 2009-10. We were able, and we were lucky, to get an extension of two years. The budget for 2009-2010 does not include THSSI funding. This is why it’s not called THSSI instead of THAF, and I keep telling the Member and he doesn’t want to believe me. He says there’s a lack of detail. He’s not accepting the answers. We just approved a supplementary appropriation approving THSSI, so we have a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue on this, I don’t believe, has to do with an agreement with Capital Health necessarily. It is true that when NWT residents need health care not available in the Territories, we usually go to Alberta and Edmonton, and it used to be called Capital Health, which now is Alberta Health. The issue here about the residents of Liard wanting to go to Nelson instead of Simpson or Stanton and then Edmonton, if that’s required, is that we already have a facility in Simpson and Stanton that we are paying for. If our residents are going to Nelson, then that’s extra cost that...

We should remember that our people are assisted in different ways and under different programs and by different professionals in varying degrees in our communities depending on their needs and the capacity in our communities. Respite care is not a solution to everything. There are some people who need more intense care than respite care. So we should remember that there are varying degrees of programs that are in line with the needs of the people.

Mr. Speaker, I state again to the Member that the department sees respite care and expanded home care as an important element in the delivery of our...

Mr. Speaker, I don’t believe we will be able to roll that out to all 33 communities. What we need to do is expand as much as possible to communities. We have begun that process three years ago. We have to do a lot of work to do that, but we have started that. We have about four or five communities outside of Yellowknife. So we’re going to work in conjunction. We’re going to provide it to communities outside of Yellowknife as well as Yellowknife. The important thing is we have begun the work and we have to move as quickly as possible. The resources are what are needed to do that. I look forward...

Mr. Speaker, on that issue, we have been seeking guidance from the Elders Council of the Stanton Territorial Health Authority. In fact, I talked to the chairperson at noon at an event. He has some proposals to make. We will work with them in where they want to go in terms of addressing better meeting the needs of a large number of aboriginal patients that we serve at Stanton. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is absolutely right. He’s talking about the situation that we deal with every day. We have unlimited demand for services in our communities. There are lots of program needs across the NWT, especially in small communities. This is the reason why the government has used the Strategic Initiatives committee Building Our Future funding to introduce and expand respite care programs in communities outside of Yellowknife for three years.

What I said this morning is that the government wants to keep moving forward with that and include Yellowknife programs into that...

Mr. Speaker, there is no set time, but I will make the commitment to review the situation and get back to the Member as soon as possible. Thank you.

The Member knows that we will be debating the 2011-2012 budget. We just had a preview of that and there is a respite care program in there that we approved. The respite care program under THSSI is handled differently because it’s federal funding and we did it through a supplementary appropriation. I look forward to the support of the Members on the other side when we work to develop a program on respite care. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I am not familiar with the detail of how that works out. I will undertake to get more detail on that. I would need to consult with the Department of Justice. Thank you.

Thank you. The Member is once again mixing up the message, misinterpreting. Mr. Speaker, we’ve had detailed discussions, and the Members and standing committee know this. THSSI funding is a major initiative by the federal government. We’ve spent medical travel out of that, we pay for our doctors, we pay for specialists, we pay for midwives, we pay for dialysis, we pay for diagnostic imaging. Mr. Speaker, should I repeat that 10 more times? The Member will not hear this. We pay a lot of money on that. It’s wrong when he says that we don’t know how we are spending this money, you’re spending on...