Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The point of saying that our rates of wait time is similar to the rest of Canada, that is just showing the challenge that all jurisdictions in Canada face, and to stay similar to the rest of Canada, actually we are making really good effort on the part of all the people who are delivering those services at Stanton.

Mr. Speaker, to give the Member more information, the CEO of Stanton and other CEOs actually, because we’re working at a territorial plan together, and all of the medical directors in each health authority, Doctor Corkal at Stanton and Doctor Claude and Doctor...

On that, I agree with the Member. I need to tell the Member that this new package excludes no one.

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to disagree with the Member for what he is saying, so I hope he understands that I don’t reject everything he says, as he suggests, Mr. Speaker. That is a serious issue. That is a challenge for any insurance.

What we have right now is that under seniors policy where anybody who is over 60, you are covered 100 percent on everything. So people do drop insurance already. We are going to, on their policy, encourage people to get insurance. If we know they have a job that has insurance, we are going to encourage them to keep those insurance. We are going to ask them to go...

Thank you. Why? Why do we have to do that? If the question is why, then the answer to why is because we have a group of people who need us and that is the working poor. What I’m hearing is everybody says help the working poor, cover them, what’s taking you so long. Mr. Ramsay said you’ve known for three years 2,200 people are not covered, why don’t you include them? That’s not my problem, include them, spend the money, get it from somewhere else, tax the people. Mr. Speaker, that’s easy to do and what people are telling me is you can cover the poor as long as you cover everybody else, as long...

Mr. Speaker, this supplementary health excludes nobody for the non-aboriginal people. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have any more to add to the point of order. I just want to withdraw my very last word, which is that it was a lie. I didn’t mean to say that. I withdraw and apologize. I wouldn’t call any Member here to say that they are lying. I apologize. I withdraw and apologize. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, there are teeth in the legislation to take actions, including suspending the licence while the investigation is going on. The key part in this is that anybody who has a concern about any physician should come forward and lodge their complaint. If they have some concern about criminal conduct, they should go to the RCMP. The most important thing is the evidence that the complainant brings forward in this process, because without the evidence, the process may not have the impact that some people might be looking for or the Member would like to see. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, as I stated earlier, the Medical Profession Act does state the process by which a complaint against a practicing physician is conducted. It does try to balance the rights of the client as well as the physician, Mr. Speaker. I’d be happy to give the Member a private briefing on how this works. Once in a while we do get concerns from people about what they are not happy with about what the doctor has done or not, or any other health care professional. There are different phases that this goes through. Sometimes just talking to the local authority resolves the matter. Other times it...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Using income threshold and looking at one’s ability to pay to determine whether you have access to a program or not is used in many places. We have those in lots of government programs, including the seniors’ fuel subsidy. This is a very commonly accepted way of doing it. We’re expanding the program to those on the basis of income, whereas before it was on the basis of age. I believe that this is the right thing to do.

I am aware, Mr. Speaker, that the Member considers himself a student of rules and procedures of the House. I know he knows the rules and procedures of the House. He studies books on the rules and procedures of the House. Mr. Speaker, he knows that I’m not privy to table Cabinet documents, but the Member is also aware that every major information and analysis about this program would go to Cabinet and then it was made available to committees. That’s our regular practice.

Mr. Speaker, if the Member has any other alternatives that he wants us to consider, we would look at that. This has been a...