Sandy Lee

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to tell the Member I have an answer for that. They have 90 days to reinstate the insurance at any time from any time. They could reinstate it, but right now we have a program that they don’t have to. They could ask for it now. They could reinstate it now and it will be...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is no contradiction there. I don’t think it will surprise anybody that the Supplementary Health Benefits Policy has been before Cabinet more often than most issues; probably not as many as Deh Cho Bridge, but, Mr. Speaker, it has been a popular topic in Cabinet.

We take the input from the public very seriously. We understand how difficult it is to make any changes to a health basket of benefits that a lot of people hold dear. We went out with the first implementation at the end of November 2008. We heard a lot of things from the public. We took it back to the...

Yes, we will follow up on that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If you think that Supplementary Health Benefits Program is a safety net program and to say that to access it is either you have to have insurance and if you don’t, the government will help you and to say that if you have an insurance program, you can’t access the program and to say that that is a discrimination, that is kind of a strange way of looking at that. What we are saying is that the government will be there for you. If you have other insurance, access that first and if you don’t, we will help you.

Like I said yesterday, Mr. Speaker, the Member has a point. Any...

Thank you. Later today I will be tabling a document called What We Have Heard, and we outline everything that we have heard in all of our consultations and meetings we have had. We’ve had very frank and direct comments from our people. Also on the website there might have been yes or no questions, but there was always room for somebody to put in their input.

People have called us; people have e-mailed us; people have talked to me on the phone; they have called me. In the Northwest Territories we live in a very small space and we know everybody, a big space, but we know each other, and so I have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I will commit to do that with the Member. We are reviewing the medical travel and we are reviewing the very issue that the Member is raising. Thank you.

Last the Joint Leadership Council met with all of the health chairs we did an in-depth briefing on this supplementary health benefits and we talked about the pros and cons of this in our health care system. The department staff met and wrote to NGOs, the seniors’ societies, the seniors’ groups and other groups such as the Centre for Northern Families or Persons with Disabilities. So we had a group of NGOs that looked at the proposal, they gave their feedback and we have incorporated those. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I just need to correct that. I was not in any way suggesting that anybody couldn’t put an input into this unless they wore a title. So if the Member understood it that way, I do apologize. What I meant to say yesterday in answering the question why have you not consulted with the pharmacy association or Nurses’ Association or any other medical related health care professionals, and my answer was yes, we did. We wrote a letter to the pharmacy association. I have actually asked the staff to put that on the website. I have consulted with many people about this supp health plan. My...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have two documents to table. The first is the document entitled Supplementary Health Benefits - What We Heard. The second document is the document entitled Slave River Journal Newspaper Article, Supplementary Health Benefits Across Canada, dated May 4, 2010. Thank you.

I’d be happy to share that. We know that policies exist, but it’s the people and machines that implement those policies and procedures. The latest information is that the information was faxed from an Alberta facility and our Privacy Commissioner is in touch with her counterpart to follow up on the details of this. Details are not clear at the moment, but we are following up on that as we take these issues very seriously. Thank you.