Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m happy to advise the Member that all that creativity the Member has spoken to is right here in this document. Mr. Speaker, we have facts here that show that there is no difference in income earning power through the ages. Whether you are whatever age, we have people who are making high income and people who are making low income. Right now, people who are making low income but not low enough to be eligible for indigent, are going without basic dental coverage for their children. But we’re not saying, okay, here’s a plan, take it or leave it, yes or no. We are having...

I blame no one. I am just asking to let us have that dialogue. This is a very important conversation that we need to have. We need people to understand what supp health programs are, who they are provided to, what they cover, what the other jurisdictions do, and how do we go forward in terms of sustainability and protecting the integrity of this program. I believe at the end of the day that we will have the information that we need from the public.

In terms of, say, how much will this cost, I have said a thousand times in this House that health care services are demand driven. We pay what...

We’re not dictating anything. We’re asking questions like number 2: Would assistance with co-payment costs based on income make a difference to your preference? Yes or no? If no, why not? What are your concerns? Which income brackets do you think should pay a co-payment? Under $30,000, $40,000 to $49,999, $50,000 to $69,999, all the way up to $150,000 and over?

We have at least 10 questions. We are most open. We are most willing. We’re most engaging. We’re just presenting the public with the basic facts about what the Supp Health Program is as opposed to the core Canadian health care. It’s a...

Mr. Speaker, the Members across often advise us that we should be open and transparent in what we do. As far as I’m concerned, I blew the door open. We are open. We want to hear from the people. We are not going to predetermine. The Member often tells us about the need for an Anti-Poverty Strategy.

Mr. Speaker, this one, we should be concerned that there are a group of people right now who don’t get benefits of supplementary health, even though they cannot afford it. I think the Member and everybody in the House owes it to us to make sure that we look at this, and we make sure that this program...

We bill for the services that we provide to Nunavut. Once again, supplementary health benefit discussions are not about cutting services in supplementary. We continue to and will have one of the best, if not the best, Supplementary Health Benefits Program anywhere in the country. We will continue to do that. The way the rules are written are quite outdated and the user profile shows that we need to look at other considerations such as affordability to pay, as one of the factors in determining who accesses this very generous and important program that we offer.

I want to say clearly that we are not looking at reducing costs. In health care services it’s about making sure that our system works well so that we plan for the future. The health care budget in this government continues to grow and we expect that it will continue to grow and that we will continue to spend the money that we need for the health and social services system.

The review of supplementary health benefits is different. It’s been around for a long time and we have very good information about who is using it and what the people’s backgrounds are, and that there is not as much fairness...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Before I answer his question I need to correct some of the things that he stated. First, that somehow through private insurers the government can charge any companies for providing core service. In Canada, the Canadian government and the provincial and territorial governments are responsible for core services and we couldn’t recoup that from a private insurance company. Any private insurance company that offers benefits will be supplementary to the core service.

Secondly, that Nunavut residents have a prior service. That is misleading, Mr. Speaker. All the governments...

I don’t know why he’s getting the impression that I don’t think that we should do that or we are not doing that. We are doing that. I said that in our Committee of the Whole discussion. Our health system as a whole, we bill for services that we need to bill, we collect money, we have people that do that, whether it’s a visitor or out-of-towner or it’s a physician-to-physician arrangement. That’s part of the health care system and delivery system. I just want to make sure that there’s not a linkage that we are somehow trying to reduce services in everything to make up for something that we’re...

I do believe that it is, bar none, the best Supplementary Health Program that is available in Canada. What we know is that there is a group of people who are excluded as it is currently administered. So we want to look at the access and see if those who are most in need are accessing those. I believe we have lots of good information out there that could start the debate. It will be facilitated at public hall meetings and I am sure that all of the questions that the Member is asking could come forward and we will have a good dialogue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Just to correct the Member’s statement, the public advisory group that I was referring to is a group of NGOs, and that includes the NWT Council of Persons with Disabilities, YWCA, the Centre for Northern Families, Yellowknife seniors and NWT seniors. So, meetings were held with those groups. There was internal working groups of DMs and appropriate resources within the government so that we could pull information together that could help with the public discussion.

The Member is asking, did we look at the analysis of changes. That’s something that we could do and if the Member knows that the...