Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions today for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I would like to ask the Minister to give us a bit of an update on minimum wage. It was a year ago on April 1st, and it wasn’t a joke, but we had our second planned increase to minimum wage. It took effect on that day. A year prior to that, at the time of the first increase in February of 2010, the Minister told us that he was considering ways to implement future minimum wage increases. At the time of the second increase, the Minister advised that there was work that needed to be done. He...

Thanks to Mr. Kalgutkar. I guess I just would like an explanation then. Is this our share of the extra costs because of the backup policy, or are we bearing more of a cost than the federal government is in this? Or is this the same 70/30 percent share that we have with all of our other RCMP expenses? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Minister, I’d like to know what we can do or what the Minister has in plans to do to try and expand that use of telehealth in terms of diagnostics. Are there any targets? We probably don’t know how much we’re using it now, but I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not there are any targets that the department has set to expand the use of telehealth for medical purposes.

Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate that we are doing all these things, but they seem to be the same things that we’ve been doing for quite some time and in order to affect reform in order to make our health system more efficient, I have to encourage the Minister to change the way that we’re doing things and I didn’t hear that in his answer. I’d like to know from the Minister, my statement talked about that Australia uses telehealth to do diagnoses, to talk to patients, to assist them from a distance. I’d like to know what we use our telehealth system for. Just what exactly, what activities...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I’ve spoken all I need to speak. I think hopefully it explains why I’ve brought this motion forward. I would like to ask for a recorded vote.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s difficult to be short. I don’t know where to start. I guess I need to now ask the Minister, he stated that we need to make changes, he stated that the health authorities compete with each other. What is the department doing to ensure that the authorities do not compete with each other for specialized staff such as NPs and doctors? What kind of a plan is there? What is the department doing on the ground to get the people that we need in the Territories and in our communities? Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Thanks for the explanation, but I have to say I’m afraid I can’t buy it. We are constantly, I shouldn’t say constantly, but very often as Members we are provided with information which cannot be shared with the public. We’re given information on a confidential basis to let us know what the government is doing or what the government is thinking about doing to get our opinion on whether or not we think the government should go forward, a yea or a nay or to provide some input. I find it really hard to believe that this government, knowing that this project was possibly going to...

Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate that. One of the things that I have heard talk of and that the Australian system highlighted is a central command, so to speak, for medical assistance where doctors are available 24/7 and they can assist communities or small health centres elsewhere with difficult problems. The Minister said that they’re discussing things with the health authorities and I recognize that needs to be done, but this has been ongoing for quite some time. I guess I need to know from the Minister – if we’re going to do reform, that usually indicates that change is taking place –...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank the Minister for his comments. I think he probably well knows what comment it was that got me a little excited.

Again, I have to state that one of the things that I’d thought of the other day when we were in committee, we’ve received a huge amount of information from the Minister of Transportation during briefings and there’s been an awful lot of questions asked and the same questions were asked here today. But I’ve found the Minister saying the same thing over and over and over in an effort to convince me without providing me with new information. Without...

We still badly need doctors in Inuvik and Hay River; there is still no permanent nurse in Tsiigehtchic; and each year we continue to spend millions of dollars moving people from their home community to a regional centre so they can get the medical services they need. We can provide medical services in our communities. We have the innovation referenced by Dr. Snowdon, we just need to get on with it.

The Health and Social Services budgets in the last two years have earmarked literally millions for the Foundation for Change to reform our health care system. What do we have to show for that money...