Sandy Lee

The fact of the matter is the old disease and conditions list did not work, and it doesn’t work now. Every day I get a request from the Member, every other Member, I get calls from all over the Territories wanting to know why we’re not covering this, we’re not covering that, this medication, there’s a new disease that comes on that gets diagnosed, there are new drugs in the market that we’re not able to pay, we have new wheelchairs, I don’t know, the list goes on. I’m sure if I did the Hansard research I could find a statement made by the honourable Member from Yellowknife Centre who said our...

The existing program is exclusive, unfair, and it does not address the needs of vulnerable people because we have no provision under the Supplementary Health Benefits to provide for those whose income is too high to qualify under indigent supplementary health benefits programs but too low to be able to buy some of the health benefits that they require, and they’re not old enough to qualify under seniors benefits. The new proposed package is much more fair and equitable because it opens access to supplementary health to everyone, 100 percent of non-aboriginal people.

The Member says somebody is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Every suggestion, proposal made by the Members and the general public in our two and a half, three years of review has been reviewed, noted, considered, analyzed. Every major public announcement I have made on this policy had gone to the Cabinet, Cabinet has reviewed and approved it, and this is a Cabinet initiative as well as the Minister of Health. Thank you.

We are working with the Privacy Commissioner. We are providing and the Sahtu Health Authority has reported to her in writing, or will report to her in writing, about what happened and what steps are being taken to prevent this from happening again. Understandably, the Sahtu Health Authority is quite upset about what happened. We are very sorry to the individuals involved and we’re doing everything we can to make sure that this doesn’t happen again. We are working closely with the Privacy Commissioner. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we made it always clear that what we are trying to do in Supplementary Health Benefits is to offer an insurance program for those who don’t have it. We are not going to be topping anybody. What we have now is we exclude a whole bunch of people who have limited supplementary health benefits and then we top up people just because of their age. What we are saying is we will look after the seniors, we will look after the youth, we will look after the working families. Everybody would have equivalent to 80 percent. For certain people under certain income thresholds, we will cover 100...

The people of the Sahtu and every community and region in the Northwest Territories should be assured and they should feel comfortable, and I want them to feel comfortable, that their health care professionals, whether they are social workers and anybody with private information, every profession has a code of conduct on how they deal with private information. It is an absolute no, no to breach any of that information. This was an accident and sometimes it happens. We are very sorry that that has happened. We are investigating to see exactly what happened and any steps that will come out of it...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I absolutely did not say and I would ask the Member to correct that I said that this was a tax on sick and the elderly. Mr. Speaker, that is misleading. That phrase is offensive because, Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is our health care system is entirely based on taking care of the sick and the elderly. We take care of the sick and the elderly.

Supplementary health benefits is a completely different thing. The Member says that there are actually people not excluded. Obviously, then, he is not paying attention to the low income families who need help from us.

Mr...

As has been said many times, this program has been reviewed since 2003 because people feel there are people who are excluded from this program and there are no means for them to appeal or to have us look at the list. Unless you are under Income Support, you do not get support for dental or vision care. So I believe that it is incumbent on the government to come up with a program that gives access to 100 percent of the people, but ask those who could afford to make a co-payment to contribute a little, contribute part of that, Mr. Speaker. This will be like any other, it’s like giving everybody...

Mr. Speaker, we as leaders are put in this place to make decisions on behalf of people and not study things to death and delay and debate. Mr. Speaker, as the Member has stated, the cost of living is a big issue in the Northwest Territories, but we also know that the NWT and especially Yellowknife, for many years, we have people on a very high income. We have to recognize that fact. The thing that the Members have to know and the values that the Member speaks about, we need to talk about low income working families who are struggling every day to pay for basic dental care and basic vision care...

No, Mr. Speaker, I have not appointed a board of inquiry during my time as Minister. Thank you.