Wendy Bisaro

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I just want to highlight the second part of the motion that encourages the Department of Health and Social Services to work with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to house child and family resource centres in the schools.

Interestingly enough, some Members attended a presentation the other morning by a couple of early childhood development experts and one of the points that they raised was that putting early childhood development programs in a school encourages the family to accept school as a good place to be, encourages kids to accept school as a good...

Thanks to the deputy minister. My other question has to do with insured services and things that are not covered under insured services. I mentioned one the other day when I talked about naturopathic doctors, but the other service, I guess, that I think and I believe there was a commitment from the previous Health Minister to consider bringing this in under our insured services, and it’s bariatric surgery. I’d like to know from the Minister, first, has bariatric surgery had any work done on it to bring it in under insured services and where does the department sit and the Minister sit in terms...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have two questions here and I mentioned it in my general comments, opening comments on this department and I don’t think I got an answer from the Minister. I’m not surprised; there were lots of comments for him to respond to. But I did want to know, I did want to get an update on the efforts to establish child and family service committees. I know the department worked very hard on it over the last two years or so and I know they were struggling to get any kind of uptake from communities. I would like to know from the Minister, do we still have somebody that’s working on...

Thanks to the Minister. So I heard the Minister say there’s not going to be an ask for more money for anti-poverty in the ‘14-15 year. You can correct me if my understanding is incorrect.

I wanted to ask a question – I think it belongs here – under the directorate. I don’t remember if it was last year or if it was a little further back than that, but my understanding is we now have I’m going to call it – it came from the French secretariat, I believe – a French position within the Department of Health and Social Services. I believe it was a pilot. I would just like to know from the Minister if...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I just have one question here. During the 16th I know the Minister was well aware and the deputy minister, as well, well aware that we had a protracted investigation into supplementary health benefits and potentially looking at charging residents a certain amount to access our supplementary health programs.

I’ve certainly heard from some of my constituents, maybe not a lot of them, but I’ve certainly heard from constituents that it’s time that we start not means testing necessarily but charging a small fee for the extra services that we provide as a government.

I’d like to...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We wish to continue with Tabled Document 22-17(5), the Main Estimates for 2014-15, with the Department of Health and Social Services.

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...