Sandy Lee

Mr. Speaker, it is not semantics. It is not semantics. I am not changing the wording there. Mr. Speaker, I hear the Member and I tell the Member now, there is no money for respite care for 2011-12. The money we approved yesterday for $250,000 is for 2010-11. Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority was proactive in approaching YACL to say that there is no money there up to March 2011 and can we work together to come up with a plan.

Mr. Speaker, having said that, I am willing to work with YACL to see how we can transition. They were given six months’ notice to tell them that we do not...

We can speak about responsibility and accountability, and the Member, on the same discussion, speaks about lack of accountability in balancing the budget, dealing with the deficit, how are we going to deal with it, and in the same breath he brings me all kinds of additional program money that I need to approve.

Mr. Speaker, everybody here knows the Department of Health and Social Services has a multi-million dollar system deficit. I have to work with the budget we have. We are making foundational changes to deal with the system, and the respite program was time specific. It was a three-year...

For the immediate future, right now I need to get more information on the situation with the families and to talk with the authority to make sure that the resources needed are supported for those families. In the long-term and mid-term, the MLA knows that this is what we want to do more of. It’s part of our Foundation for Change action plan. We want to be able to change our system so that we strengthen our local and community delivery and find more resources so that we can support our elders, and chronically ill, and persons with disabilities in our local communities. Thank you.

Enhancing home care service and community support is one of the goals of the department. We appreciate that extra resources are needed to expand those services, but for now we deliver those services with the staff and resources we have in the communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to provide further details on the process that we are taking to implement the recommendations from the Supplementary Health Benefits Joint Working Group surrounding updates to the existing Extended Health Benefits Program.

The recommendations that were made by the Joint Working Group require varying levels of additional research and planning before implementation. We plan to move forward as quickly as we can while ensuring we have done our homework.

We will immediately begin working with the Department of Human Resources, and later on, other employers in the NWT...

Mr. Speaker, yes, as a matter of fact, we are communicating right now to sit down together and to less politicize this issue and have the facts prevail and have my officials sit with YACL and work out a resolution. I say it again, that we will find a resolution to provide assistance to YACL. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, everything that comes through Health and Social Services is highly charged and highly emotional. There are always more demands than supply of money. I just want to clarify the information on funding, because some Members seem to be not clear on that, Mr. Speaker. We just approved the business plan that we cannot talk about. I agree that there was money approved for that for next year, money being discussed, but that hasn’t to do with this funding arrangement we have with YACL. The THSSI funding we just approved in supplementary appropriation yesterday has...

Mr. Speaker, the Member is quite incorrect in saying $250,000 is there for 2011-12. The budget for THSSI for 2011-12 has not been decided, so I don’t understand where he is getting that information from. The supplementary appropriation we approved yesterday is for 2010-11, because even though we have the funding from the federal government, as a government we are dealing with it as a supplementary appropriation. We have a budget in the books for respite care, but that is not, and $250,000 that we approved is for 2010-11. We don’t have a budget for 2011-12. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member knows he’s asked me lots of questions about the deficit of our department. I’ve indicated many a time that we have a health and social services deficit. It’s in the multi-millions. We are not able to expand any programs. The respite care program was a pilot project and it was time limited. Thank you.

That’s the first time that I’ve heard of the six clients that the Member is mentioning. I will be happy to undertake to get those names and get information from the authority as to what work we are providing for them. Thank you.