Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are also addressed to the Minister of Health and Social Services today. I want to follow up on my statement and ask the Minister some questions about the Housing First program.

I would like to, first of all, say that the City of Yellowknife has taken the lead on this project, but they certainly need to have other people involved in the project. The money is federal money. It’s not GNWT money. I’d like to know from the Minister how our territorial health and social services authorities and department, particularly, the Yellowknife Health and Social Services...

Thanks to the Minister. My last comment on this area would be: Once the legislation is done and passed and has come into force, if the department determines that the changes in order to provide better services that the changes are going to mean an extra expenditure, is the Minister willing to come back to the House with a supplementary appropriation in order to provide effective and valid child and family services? Thank you.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I have one more question here and it has to do with the Medical Travel Policy. It seems we have been amending this policy for quite some time. I know the department has been working very hard on it and has been doing a lot of consultation and investigation and so on. I would like an update on where that’s at. The other half of this question is once we do put a new policy into place, is it going to create some efficiencies and save us some money or, because it’s a new policy, is it going to expand our costs and are we expecting an increase in medical travel due to the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a couple of questions here. The first one has to do with the Child and Family Services Act. There are amendments coming forward for this legislation, from what I understand. I’d like to know from the Minister if the amendments to this piece of legislation are going to require extra expenditures, and if so, where are they in this budget?

I figured it depended on the act. Probably the one that’s going to be the most expensive is the Health Information Act. I would like to know where that’s reflected in this budget. Thank you.

So I guess that means that Tuk was added in this current budget year, not in ’15-16. Okay. So we are not increasing the number of communities for Healthy Family Programs in ’15-16? That would be my last question for confirmation. Thank you.

I’ll try to remember when we get there what section that was. Mr. Dolynny talked a bit about the governance and I had the same question why there doesn’t seem to be any indication in the budget that we’re going to be saving some money in terms of the amalgamation of health authorities into one. I would have thought there would have been some efficiencies and some savings due to economies of scale. I can appreciate the Minister’s remark that health costs keep going up. Absolutely they do. But, I guess, can we anticipate, then, that once this amalgamated system is in place, and I would think...

Thanks. I guess best practices across our country and the world are not necessarily what work in the North. I would suggest that we’d have an awful lot of people in small communities who are not going to get a heck of a lot of benefit out of this campaign and I would urge the department to reconsider.

My last question has to do with the Healthy Family Program. I think it should go on this page, not the next page because I note the next page is just for the Tlicho Government. Are we increasing the number of communities that will have a Healthy Family Program in the ’15-16 year? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a number of questions on this section. As the Minister mentioned yesterday, this department has changed considerably in the way it’s laid out, so if I bring up something on the wrong page, please, whoever, let me know and I’ll put it on the right page when we get there.

This section, if I read the text right, includes health services administration in Inuvik. I’d like to start by asking the Minister, when we talked about business plans there was a concern, and there’s been a concern for a number of years, but we talked about, basically, health card fraud and that...

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks for the explanation. How much money has been budgeted? How much money is being spent on this campaign between the two departments? Thank you.