Tom Beaulieu

Recognizing the deviation from the NIHB formulary could potentially cost more money than expected and have other impacts, but I will commit to continue to look at off-label drugs and the positive impacts of off-label drugs on a one-off basis.

Thank you. At this point any drugs that are considered to be off-label drugs that have benefits other than what’s indicated and approved by Health Canada, is on a one-off basis, like I indicated. It’s requested by the physician so that an individual that is prescribed drugs and is having a positive effect in another area, the exception can be requested by a physician. The physician’s request will then go to Alberta Blue Cross for review and then it will come back to Health and Social Services for consideration.

Thank you. Yes, I’m prepared to do that. Thank you.

Thank you. I’ve not had that discussion with the Minister of Housing as far as any costs that may be coming from the Housing Corp, or had any discussion with the Minister of Education as in income support to carry the pensioners over until their cheques come. What we’ve been doing is trying to find out why they’re late and we’re going to be following up at the request of the MLA, follow up with the appropriate department federally to find out what the issue is with the two months in a row where their cheques are delayed. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That’s very touching.

I wanted to congratulate Tu Nedhe recipients of the Premier’s awards today for the Premier’s Award for Collaboration on the Slave River and Delta Partnership Team. We had two members from Fort Resolution, Patrick Simon and Tausia Lal.

Also, the Premier’s Award of Excellence for the team award recipients went to the Deninu School in Fort Resolution, and the principal was here to receive the award for all the teachers and administrators over there. That’s an excellent school. Each time I come into Fort Resolution and I have an opportunity, I attend...

I’m not aware of any discussions with the Garrison Airport since the time that was brought up. I had recently met with the retired nurses from Alberta and the NWT; they were not aware of that as well. We spoke a bit about that. So I could get some updated information on the Garrison Airport and provide that information to the Member.

Mr. Speaker, the Department of Health and Social Services is trying to use the integrated service delivery model to try to address issues with seniors’ care right across the territory. We do recognize that the numbers indicate that we should be providing more home care services to allow seniors to live independently.

As far as the responsibility for individuals that can no longer safely care for themselves, the option is going to a long-term care facility in Inuvik. We can’t afford to build that type of long-term care facility in all of the communities, but there is one in Inuvik, although...

Mr. Speaker, perhaps the gaps that are easy to fill can be identified and done within the next three years with this action plan. I’m sure that there will have to be more resources put in or resources moved around. That’s part of the issue; is right now we’re not sure if we need a lot more resources, because the whole nature of a plan like this is so that in the future we are avoiding a lot of costs, a lot of health costs, a lot of costs on treatment and so on, because if we go into prevention, in the future we don’t have to treat.

I think this plan is going to give us at least the ability to...

Mr. Speaker, that’s a difficult question. Creating legislation to move some money from liquor sales, tax on liquor sales to help with addictions and mental health and so on is one thing. If that’s what he’s referring to, then that legislation is something that would be developed by the Department of Finance.

I’m not sure what type of legislation we would have to develop in order to prevent people from consuming alcohol. Drugs are illegal. Alcohol is legal. We need to develop legislation around alcohol, but what type of legislation would prevent people from consuming alcohol when it’s available...

No, we are going to start this action plan and then we are going to start using the business planning process to either renew this action plan or build on to this action plan. We’ll see how this goes. We’ll have a good lay of the land on what we have out there as far as mental health and addiction issues and then, from there, we will build on something that is longer term. We are not going to start at the end of this, but we will start during this action plan. We will start to develop that longer-term strategy. Thank you.