Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services.

With respect to the service levels of therapy provided to clients:

How many hours of patient service are provided in each respective therapy area by the client’s community in the NWT and out of Territory for the 2008-2009 fiscal year?

How many therapy service requests are outstanding as of January 1, 2010, by community in and out of Territory?

Please provide details of the established service limitations and/or caps for therapy services such as injuries, speech therapy, stroke recovery, slip and falls, et...

Respectfully, the Premier talks about a budget as the framework, but ultimately once that budget is presented to us in the private context of consensus government when we do our review and then it comes to the House, there’s extremely very little that ever gets changed and we know that. So the reality of changing or approving, I mean, really we’re just here to sort of echo off the ideas of what Cabinet’s already made the decision on. So, Mr. Speaker, I’m talking about guiding principles and framework, because if a community like Wrigley doesn’t have a nurse, that seems completely unfair and I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member’s statement today I talked about programs and services and the need to make sure that they’re fairly distributed throughout the Northwest Territories. Mr. Speaker, it does bother me when I hear about a community, whether it’s in Wrigley or it’s Tsiigehtchic, that they don’t have fair services, because the first thing they do is look to Yellowknife and assume that we have everything, and I don’t think that’s necessarily the truth. But I also feel for the communities and want to support them when they need their services. That’s why my Member’s...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As Members we are often busy lobbying for more programs and services and certainly more facilities for our constituents and ridings. As we all have become well aware that our job, number one, is to make sure that our constituents’ issues are brought forward, and our roles as MLAs make this very important as we try to demonstrate the needs in our ridings.

Every community, I believe, needs to be treated fairly. Therefore, I want to use my Member’s statement today to talk about the importance of community and regional standards. By that I mean standards that provide...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve recently been informed that the radiologist contract has ended in some type of dispute. I’m not precisely sure if it was about money or technical expertise but, if I understood it correctly, people were brought up to provide that service. I’m certainly concerned that this may be putting Northerners at risk. It does cause quite a bit of worry, because anybody who goes to a radiologist, this is not an elective type of treatment, this is obviously for very serious concerns.

I’m wondering what the Minister of Health and Social Services can do to update this House as to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m trying to understand the Premier’s apprehension to coming up with a guiding principle and working with this side of the House to help formulate it into a long-term policy and a strategy. Mr. Speaker, would the Premier be willing to draft a policy that helps to develop this type of framework I’m raising here today and bring it to all Members to have some type of discussion to ensure that there’s a fair, equal distribution of resources and services, as well as programs throughout the Northwest Territories that help serve all our people? Not just here in Yellowknife...

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the answer from the Premier, but I’m not hearing a guiding principle or a Cabinet policy that guides this. I hear factors, but the issue, really, I’m talking about is building a framework so then it’s transparent. It’s transparent amongst Members so then we can help advocate, so if you are a community and needed a particular issue or one Member’s particular riding needed a particular focus and we were able to hold it up against the planning process that’s fair, transparent and equally understood.

Now, I know the Premier is going to respond only to this next point, but...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize and thank one of our Pages, Paige Elkin. She’s been a stalwart Page of this Assembly on many occasions. For the information of all Members of this Assembly, she’s also on our NWT curling team, and she’s also my son’s favourite babysitter. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 8 on the Order Paper.

---Unanimous consent granted.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister straying from the real point of the whole discussion here, which is the fact that we need a program to help attract business to invest in the Northwest Territories. That is where our population is sort of sprung off or where the opportunity lies. Would the Minister consider establishing some sort of task force program that reaches out into industry to bring industry here in the Northwest Territories as I talked about in my Member’s statement? Whether it’s call centres or attracting new business and whatnot, there are so many opportunities I don...