Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was here when the former Minister of Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen, came up with the idea, which I thought was a great idea until it got outside of the building. Then we ran into problems because there are lots of people out there who feel that they’re grandmothers should belong to this group. Of course, we can’t have all the grandmothers meeting in a group all the time of that size.

My approach has been to work with the NWT Seniors’ Society, which is a group made up of elders from across the Territories, big and small. There are about six, seven or...

I realize that for some out there this could be studied for 10 years. I’ve been here for 10 years. This Supplementary Health Benefits Policy was studied for seven years, that I was here in 2007, before changes were brought about. Mr. Speaker, the Member is right; the last motion was in April, but I believe we set after the motion was passed. We worked on it through the summer and the fall. Perhaps, for some, we could spend 10 years studying this before any changes are made.

Mr. Speaker, I believe it’s a judgment call. I believe it was more important that we go out with the profile of the...

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 The way the rules are written are quite outdated and the user profile shows that we need to look at other considerations such as affordability to pay, as one of the factors in determining who accesses this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...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Wednesday, March 3, 2010, I will move that Bill 2, An Act to Amend the Dental Auxiliaries Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The standard is the best interests of the child. We know that a lot could be put into that, but whenever a child protection worker intervenes, they have to justify and answer for it and there are a group of people that are working on that. I think, in this case, what would be helpful is if I could have a private discussion with the Member. Perhaps this family is not aware of all the support that they can get, and I’d be happy to work with the Member to help this family if we can. But, really, I am aware and I could give the Member stats on the fact that our system really works to work with...