Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I mentioned in my general comments this area was an extremely highly volatile issue about a year ago and I wanted to know in terms of proposed... Okay, I’ll start again. The changes are proposed to be put in place on September 1, 2010, and the Minister has advised, I think, that there is some work going on at this point. I wondered if I could get a bit more information in detail about just exactly what is happening at the moment. There are no consultations certainly that the public can take part in at this point, so I would like some information as to what work is going...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess without having any kind of a time frame I need to ask a general question. If we are not currently capturing the costs of providing services, some services to Nunavut patients, communities, et cetera, what sort of liability does that put out there for us? How vulnerable are we to spending money that we’re not going to recoup? Is this going to create a situation where we are going to be basically in debt because we’re providing services for which we’re not being paid? I guess I would like to know how much. But if the Minister can’t tell me when we’re going to be...

Mr. Chairman, thank you to the deputy minister for that explanation. I guess I am glad to hear that this is an issue that is going to be looked at in further detail. To me it sounds as though this is a logical approach to look at the big picture, figure out what we should be doing and what we shouldn’t be doing and then go after the funding for those things that we are doing that aren’t now covered. Is it possible for the deputy minister or the Minister to give us some indication of timing on sort of when this work might be completed, when we might be amending the agreement to sort of be able...

Mr. Speaker, I guess I just have to say to the Minister that I have a really hard time with the argument that we need to wait for what the U.S. does or we need to align ourselves with the United States. I am sorry, but we are a Territory in and of our own right. We should be doing our own work and setting our own targets. The fact that it is only a small bit in the environment of the world has nothing to do with the fact that we should do it.

I would like to ask the Minister if he can identify, and this is again in terms of energy initiatives, what the GNWT is doing to educate our residents and...

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister but, again, I have to ask the same question. I am asking for one document. Does this government have one document which talks about all the energy activities that we do? He’s mentioned that there are a number of documents. I don’t dispute that. There are way too many documents, in my view. He has also talked about strategies which we paid for many millions of dollars. Where are those? Why aren’t we using them? Is there one document which coordinates all our energy activities? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I considered a subject for my Member’s statement today, I realized I have been taking the government to task for the past week, some might say too harshly. So I thought I would take a look around and see if I could find a few good things happening within the GNWT and the Legislative Assembly. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that I found lots of good results.

For instance, during last year’s budget debate I was very vocal about the millions earmarked for the Olympics, but the money was approved and now the work has been done and the value of the money spent...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a quick question. I thought I had heard, I can’t quite remember where, in the last few days that the program review office was looking at some of the costs of medical travel. Could I get a confirmation from the Minister that that is so and if there are any findings that she can reveal at this point? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for that information. I look forward to our briefing. I guess I just would like a bit of confirmation in terms of timing. I get the impression...(inaudible)...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a question relative to the numbers on page 8-21. From 2009-10 revised estimates we’ve got $185 million give or take and in 2010-11 we go to about $180 million. So that’s a fairly large reduction. If I look on the next page it looks as though the reductions are basically to authorities for the provision of their various services and I just wondered what kind of an impact these reductions are going to have on the ability of the authorities to provide their services and, secondly, is this reduction related to the lack of renewal of THAF funding, which isn’t shown...

Mr. Chairman, to the Minister, I understand that the one contract, the current contract, is basically finalized. I know a long time is what she has mentioned, but I am talking about the things that are not being captured now. How long do we think it is going to take to get some sort of agreement in place so that we can capture those things? I appreciate that it is a long process, but what does “a long time” mean? Thank you.