Wendy Bisaro

Thanks for all that detail, maybe a bit too much. I’m trying to understand. This is an increase to grants and contributions and fees and payments. A lot of the ones you mentioned were increases in what sounds like compensation. Are these contributions to health authorities? Is that why they’re under grants and contributions and fees and payments? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for the clarification. I take from that that, yes, this is going to be ongoing. I still didn’t really hear when this commitment is going to start, but I think it’s going to start when the 16 to 1 is exceeded.

The Minister, in his statement, referred to pupil-teacher ratio for authorities, and in authorities that have a number of schools, pupil-teacher ratio can vary from school to school, so I’d like to ask the Minister, when they were deciding on this commitment to fund people beyond 16 to 1 ratio, did they consider evaluating pupil-teacher ratio by school? Did they...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I kind of shot the wad previously before I introduced the motion. I would just like to state, in terms of where the money can come from, I know the department is consistently strapped for money and I know the Minister said, as well, that we don’t know what the federal money is going to be eligible for, but I suspect we can make oral health care fit into something that the federal government is going to require us to use for this $7 million a year.

I really feel this is a minimal amount of money and I feel it’s basic to the health of our children. It’s a very basic...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I listened with interest to his statement yesterday about the impact of funding reallocation for junior kindergarten on the pupil-teacher ratio. I’d like to follow up with a few questions to the Minister.

There is some good stuff in here. There’s some bad stuff in the statement, but the statement suggests to me that it’s okay to financially penalize bigger schools to protect the funding of schools with less than 120 students. I understand that, but I also want to say that I don’t necessarily...

Staffing Inuvik is ’15-16 is what I thought I heard. My other question was where are we going after Inuvik? Where is the next area that a Midwifery Program is going to be put in place?

Thanks to the Minister. I have a comment with regard to health card renewals. Some months ago, over a year ago I guess, it was a huge issue and there were major problems with health card renewals. Interestingly enough, I haven’t heard many comments from my constituents, certainly within the last six or eight months, but just recently I had somebody who phoned and left me a message, didn’t really want any action but wanted me to know – and I’m sharing this with you, Minister – that his health care card, he had just discovered it had been expired for a year and he had no knowledge. Now, I...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a question with regards to the numbers on this page. When I looked at them and considered the results of year over year for the last number of years and the fact that our authorities tend to be in deficit, I wondered how close these numbers are to actuals. I know the Minister mentioned the other day that we do have authorities that are still operating under deficits. I don’t necessarily need to hear the numbers right now, but if the Minister would commit to providing us with a list of these same authorities and some actuals so we can see how much authorities...

Madam Chair, I just wanted to apologize. I must have gapped out when Mr. Bromley asked his question, so I’m very sorry for wasting everybody’s time. I’ll read it when we get it. Thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to suggest that the motion can be read in a different manner than what Mr. Menicoche has interpreted it as. It recommends an additional allocation in the fiscal year of $2 million; however, it does not say it has to be new money. The committee is simply suggesting that we need to put a larger focus on mental health and addictions priorities and on actions that address mental health and addictions. It doesn’t necessarily have to be new money. There are lots of things that the department wants to do, but if the department so chooses, they can take money from...

Thanks to the Minister. So, my usual question, I guess, is in terms of timing. When might we expect this revision of the list to be done? I’m hoping that maybe there would be some communication with Regular Members as to what the department has decided on, and as part of that, is there a willingness on the part of the department to look at including naturopathic doctors at some point and when might that be? Thank you.