Sorry.
Mr. Speaker, Members have been provided with information on the consultation that took place between 2003 and 2007. I agree with the Member, I know how to agree to agree, and agree to disagree. I understand that Members feel those consultations were not the way they should have been. That’s not to say the consultations didn’t take place, because there was lots of discussions with the NGOs and seniors’ groups about how to change the Supplementary Health Benefits Program. Going forward, as I have stated in my Minister’s statement, in answer to Ms. Bisaro’s question and to other Members and to the discussions I had with the NWT Seniors executive society, executive of the society, I am committed to doing a meaningful consultation. We have learned a lot that we need to address since this was announced in the two months, that I was not aware of before and we will go through them and we will have a meaningful two-way exchange on how to work through this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final, short supplementary , Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in your announcement, you indicated, the Minister indicated that she’s going to be releasing the program, the revised program on September 1, 2009. In my Member’s statement I indicated that I don’t believe that’s a reasonable timeline. I was wondering if I could get the Minister to commit to extending the implementation date to April 1, 2010, at the very earliest and that during the research and facilitation…Sorry, and doing the research and facilitating real consultation with affected stakeholders which will result in an acceptable Supplementary Health Benefits Program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I believe the objective of the Members and the seniors in the gallery and everybody I have talked to is to make sure this program is good qualitatively and it’s not, the time is not the most important thing; it’s that we do the right thing. We are committed to do the right thing and I have agreed with the Seniors’ Society and the NGOs that I have been talking to, that we will have roundtables, we will have workshops, because these are very complicated issues and we will make sure that we do not cause undue hardship to those people who need our assistance and that we will have meaningful consultation. The end date is not written in stone. I don’t understand. Members have been asking me for the last six weeks to extend this, change this. I do this and the difference between…I don’t know. I have been open, approachable, I have been accommodating. I don’t understand what the big deal is about the date. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for the Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask a question to the government in terms of the recent economic crisis that is happening around the world and also Canada and possibly here in the Northwest Territories. I would like to ask the Premier to see if there is any type of regional economic stimulus from the people of the Northwest Territories as to how they could deal with this crisis that has happened before us in terms of how we can incur economic stimulus in our own regions in terms of dealing with the recession. Thank you.
The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The area of the economic crisis the country has been caught in, we have been affected by a global economic climate and we have been involved for quite some time in trying to do our own stimulus. That is through advancement of the Building Canada Plan with the federal government as well as increasing our own contributions towards the capital side of it. I have had a number of regional meetings with regional aboriginal leadership on a number of factors. There has been ongoing work that we are doing through our budgeting process that would see still a substantial amount of spending. Minister Miltenberger will be delivering a budget that, I believe, will show a further investment in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I certainly look forward to the Minister’s budget address as to what stimulus could be happening in our region in terms of the economics. I would like to ask the Premier in terms of the discussions with the regional entities of the Northwest Territories, has the Premier also looked in turn to what type of opportunities funds could be available to stimulate the Northwest Territories in terms of stabilizing or having some security for people of the Northwest Territories? There is funding out there that isn’t within the privy of private Members to be involved in, but there are some funds out there that the Cabinet could look at to make available to our northern businesses.
Mr. Speaker, the fact that there are quite a number of programs that are already being delivered by the Government of the Northwest Territories through a business development investment corporation that lends money to companies for $2 million and under. The Opportunities Fund that has been in existence for quite a number of years looked at $2 million and over. In fact, the Minister of ITI is looking and has, in fact, brought a paper forward to revise that policy. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I certainly look forward to the department’s revised policy on this Opportunities Fund, because that is one of the issues that I would like to see. One of the constituents that I got a call from yesterday didn’t know about this fund and was quite shocked and said what is this government doing lending, aiding, investing, whatever interpretation we put on it to discover where in the point of $34 million? Why is the government not supporting the northern aboriginal businesses in terms of this? I look forward to that policy. Can the Premier commit that this policy would see a significant change in terms of helping out the people of the Northwest Territories first in terms of their business? Can the Premier commit to that direction in terms of policy changes?
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of ITI is working around that policy development. We will be bringing it forward for review as they put some parameters around it. The discussion as the Member has raised, the area of the loan that has been discussed out there in the public now, in fact, has quite a number of partners and in fact quite a number of regions, groups and development corporations in the Northwest Territories that do provide corporate taxes to the Government of the Northwest Territories that employs quite a number of people that provide payroll tax and personal income tax to the revenues of this government then that feeds other programs across the Territory. So there is an investment issue that we have looked at. The simple fact, as the Member spoke of the concerns around the economic crisis that we are in, is that at times we have to look at the companies that are existing in the Northwest Territories and do we support them in remaining in business. Thank you.
Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I certainly support the companies that are doing business in the Northwest Territories. I guess I am looking at the long-term standing and it’s different interpretations that regional companies in the Northwest Territories in my region are sustaining, that have paid taxes, are lifelong people in my region that are looking for opportunities. When they see in the headlines in the newspaper of a loan being paid out to Discovery Air from Ontario, they get quite upset. They are asking to see who this government is looking after. I agree with the Premier in terms of employment contributions. We want to look after our people first. I ask the Premier, can he commit within this Assembly here within a month or two weeks, can he see that these changes that would affect the needs of northern people in their businesses that are accessing this Opportunities Fund? Can he see a commitment very quickly?
Mr. Speaker, one thing we have to realize is that this opportunity fund is not grant money. It is money that has to be paid back to the federal government, so due diligence on any proposal will have to be done. The Minister is working on a package. He will be coming forward with a package. Let’s be clear. In using this one company in talking about it, being it is from southern Canada, Denendeh Helicopters, Deh Cho Regional Helicopters, Sahtu Helicopters, Gwich’in Helicopters, Highland Helicopters, Tli Cho Helicopters, Colville Lake, Fort Good Hope, Wrigley, Deline, Tli Cho Air, Lutselk’e Air Services all part of this form a partnership of this group so, in fact, this company is quite involved with regional bodies, with development corporations that employ people in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I would like to follow up on my Member’s statement with respect to the John Tetso Memorial Library closing in Fort Simpson. I sent numerous e-mails and memorandums to the government and particularly to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment to assist the community in this matter. I would just like to ask the Minister: what stage or how far has this department gone in successfully dealing with the community organizations in addressing this very important matter for residents of Fort Simpson? Thank you.
The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Certainly, we have been working closely with the community of Fort Simpson on this particular area. We have been working with various organizations in the community. As you know, the Deh Cho Hall is in the process of closing down because of the inspection that took place. At the same time, Mr. Speaker, we are working…I appreciate all of the correspondence that the MLA has sent to my department, to my attention. We are doing what we can to work with the community on finding solutions to have this community library based on if there are any vacant working units. At this time, we are exploring options. ECE is also working closely with DDEC and also Public Works. There are scheduled meetings on February 10th with the mayor of the village, the district education authority, school staff and the ECE library services to explore additional options. One of the options is a library in the school area. Mahsi.
The issues are twofold with the closing of the library. One, of course, is short-term space and a long-term solution which is providing resources to do renovations to a school and an additional building that can house a library. I’d just like to know, once again, how far has the department been successful in looking at short-term solutions and maybe even using the new government office building that’s in Fort Simpson. Have they looked at any engineering plans? Can that building sustain library services, and include, as well, resources to upgrade the current existing Village of Fort Simpson building to renovate and beef up that structure so it can house a library? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, with our department we did explore various options in the community. The first option is, of course, the Member identified the new building if it could hold the library books and so forth. Certainly, the second floor, there’s space available but the weight of the books certainly cannot be feasible to having a library on the second floor. Also, PWS, I’ve been working closely with them and they confirm that Fort Simpson doesn’t have a suitable rental space available in the community.
We’ve done what we can as a department in working with the community. We do continue to work on an option of the school modification, but we have to work with the DEA because we have to respect their decision as well. The school operates within the community, so we continue to work closely with them and there is a planned meeting to discuss further options.
I would like to reiterate that the Department of ECE is responsible for library services throughout the Northwest Territories and they have made provision to assist other communities. Once again, this issue has been...We really felt it was on the backburner for awhile; they knew it was coming. I think the important thing here, Mr. Speaker, is where is the Minister looking at providing any resources in the community in the short-term to provide for library space?
Mr. Speaker, we did look at, like I said earlier, options in the community, whether it be a rental space, but we haven’t had success to date in that respect. Certainly, we have to keep in mind about the capital planning process. Once the discussion takes place with the DEA and the school staff and also the parents and the community, we can certainly move forward on that. Again, I have to respect the wishes of the community of how we can proceed with this. I’m more than willing to hear more from the MLA on how we can proceed with this from the community’s perspective.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
The Minister mentioned the capital planning process, so there’s indication there that he’s willing to help the community with the long-term space needs of the library. I’m really pleased to hear that. When does that capital planning process begin?
First and foremost is the consultation process with the community and how that structure’s going to look, if there’s space availability within the school, the modifications, the cost factor. Those are the issues that we need to take into consideration. I will keep the MLA in contact and in the loop with the community as well. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Numerous other Members have asked questions today about the supplementary health benefits and the proposed changes to those. Part of the big issue that I’m having with this is the analytical work, the work that somebody inside of the Department of Health and Social Services is, and should be, conducting on this. I don’t know how the Minister and the government could go public with a policy as half-baked and disjointed as this policy is. The Minister announced it in December and here we are the first week of February, I’ve probably got 500 e-mails, the Minister has got a number of e-mails and calls and concerns. Obviously, the policy itself is flawed. I’d like to ask the Minister today: who exactly is doing the work on this program and this policy change inside the department? How many people have been working on this thing? Obviously, somewhere along the line people are messing this thing up in a big way, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Mr. Speaker, the policy section of the Department of Health and Social Services were responsible for designing and doing consultations between 2003 to 2007 on the implementation of the policy with the health insurance office in Inuvik and we have obtained Blue Cross, who is the provider of insurance programs for the government to implement this plan.
Mr. Speaker, there are only 42,000 residents here in the Northwest Territories and I find it completely absurd that the Minister cannot answer a question about how many people this will impact. She talks about low-income earners and families. How many of those people are there in our Territory and where are they? She can’t answer that question.
Also, I haven’t heard the Minister give us an answer as to her assertion that this move is cost neutral. Where is that evidence, Mr. Speaker? I’d like to see it, and so would everybody else. It just hasn’t been proven.
Mr. Speaker, it’s hard to explain all this. The Health Care Program is a demand-driven service. I can’t tell you, as the Minister of Health, who is exactly on the system on any given day. Let’s just be logical. How many people are in the hospital? Well, I guess we could do that. We could do it today, take an inventory, but there are lots of people accessing this program and for all kinds of different reasons with all kinds of family make-ups and stuff.
What I want to say is, as the Minister, what you look at is the policy intent and policy objective, and cost neutral does not mean that we have $5 million for supplementary health and we cannot spend one cent more. That’s not how we operate supplementary health programs because the Member knows that for as long as this program has been around, we’ve been spending about $7 million over the last number of years and we have to come back for a supplementary appropriation if it goes over. The government sets out policy objectives and what it says is that until now we have provided supplementary health benefits to those who are over 60, 100 percent. If you have a specific condition on the list, it’s 100 percent. If you are indigent, 100 percent. We had no means to include income as a criteria, so the government has the right to say, okay, let us include an ability to pay or an inability to pay as a policy factor. Then once you set that out, whoever meets that criteria gets on that system and we pay for it. But since we announced that, I acknowledge that we are leaving out more people than we should. So I’m willing to change that. The catastrophic cost policy, the ceiling is too high. We are leaving out too many people. We don’t want to do that because people have asked us to do that, so we are changing that. We are being responsive to make sure that we meet the policy objectives and we are helping our residents who need it.
Mr. Speaker, again, I do find it hard to believe that we don’t know and we can’t guess. Maybe now that we’re looking at income testing, I think there are other ways we can model this. We can find out -- and I agree with the Minister -- if low-income earners and low-income families are the area that we need to address as a government, we should be doing that. We should find out how many people there are in that segment and find out what it costs. That’s what we’re asking for here.
While I’m talking about cost, I want to ask the Minister what work is the Department of Health and Social Services doing on chasing down the 3,000 to 4,000 renegade health care cards that are out there costing us money? Nothing, Mr. Speaker. That’s the answer to that one.
Mr. Speaker, I can categorically tell the Member that he is wrong when he says nothing is being done about tracking down those people with NWT health care cards when they should not...We have implemented an audit program. The audit office of the GNWT has been sending letters...We’ve been doing auditing of all of the claims that we are receiving on NWT health care and if there are too many services being rendered outside of the provinces, we’re writing them and we’re asking them to document them and if they don’t give us the documents we call them and we are tracking them down. We have been auditing this is in a very serious way. The Member is very wrong in saying that nothing is being done because we took that issue very seriously.
Thank you Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Mr. Speaker, I know the Minister has just announced this new work that the department is working on on the renegade health care card issue. That’s news to me. Also news to me lately is the announcement that we’re losing our chief medical officer and that the government had signed a physicians’ contract. They don’t tell us, we find out in the press. That’s the way this government operates, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. I didn’t hear a question there. Ms. Lee, did you want to respond?
Mr. Speaker, the Member could go back on the record. I have announced the audit program that we are doing to keep track of health records. The medical health officer, he made a personal choice to go work in Alberta. He was going to communicate to the Members himself, but Alberta decided to announce it two weeks before so that’s why the Member didn’t know. With respect to the physicians’ contract, we communicated to every Member, we wrote them a letter way before it was announced in the media. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Mr. Speaker, I’m sort of reminded of a famous individual known as Tommy Douglas. He fought tooth and nail for health care and I could imagine his position now; he’d be rolling in his grave to find out that means testing or income testing our health care system is the way to go. I think he’d call this a user-pay system and this is sort of a door being cracked open to that demonstration.
If I could loosely quote the Minister, a minute ago she said I don’t understand what the big deal is about the implementation date. Mr. Speaker, that’s the whole problem. It’s the implementation date without reasonable consultation. She said a delivery date must be delivered by this time and we’re going to get there hell or high water. That’s what that date does.
What I’m going to ask the Minister is: would she agree to this House today that she will first take off any implementation date without approval of this House, without the support of this House on any changes to the Supplementary Health Benefits Program.
The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. While we’re on the topic of Mr. Tommy Douglas, let me say that he happens to be one of my heroes because I was born in a country where there is no health care. I was born to a single mother who could not afford to keep me in an incubator, when I was born seven weeks too early, less than two pounds. I couldn’t drink breast milk. She had to feed me by spoon. The doctor told her you have to watch her to see if she’s going to make it. I value Canadian health care in Canada. Supplementary health care is not the same thing as the Canadian Health Plan. It is important that we value what we have and make sure that we make it work. In terms of the effective date for the consultation, I have heard from the Members and the public throughout the last two months that this is not ready. Okay. I am saying Members should just accept it when the Minister says we screwed up. Okay?
---Applause
I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to say that I’m not denying anything that you’re saying. We found major gaps. I’m telling you that we will take the time to work on that. I’ve met with the executive and NGOs and I want to tell you that between 2003 to 2007 the department met at least four times with the NWT Seniors’ Society, with the idea about the changes, and the NGOs. I’m saying we will take the time. We will do our meaningful consultation. We will make sure that we cover our people who need it. There is no argument here. That’s what I meant when I said, "What’s the big deal?" I’m not saying that’s not important. I’m saying I’m committed to a meaningful consultation.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister talks about meaningful consultation and identifying gaps. Mr. Speaker, in her own words, from 2003 to 2007 they worked on this policy in the policy shop. They also went to Social Programs for approval. They sat on this for a year and a half and just before Christmas of 2008, they decided to launch this on the public. You’re telling me, after approximately five years that you took to develop a policy that is so full of gaps that you couldn’t hold water back to save your life, that you’re going to come up and find all the gaps and solve all the problems in six months. That’s why I’m asking that six months won’t do this policy justice and in fairness. I’m going to repeat this question this way: The Minister clearly says programs are demand driven. This side of the House is demanding you take off the implementation date, and if you need to bring it to consultation don’t put the pressure on getting the results by time driven only, go for the results first.
I’ve said I am committed to a meaningful consultation. We have received some really good information that we need to revisit. It’s pretty simple what we need to fix right now. There are some glaring things that we need to fix on what’s proposed; income threshold and the eligibility for catastrophic drug program. We will do a meaningful consultation to make sure that we have fixed this program and we will take the time we need to. I’ve agreed to consult on the process. We’re going to have an exchange and workshops so that you don’t have a situation where people go and have a meeting and then not give enough time or a means to give feedback. I think I agree with the Member, that we will do what’s necessary to improve this situation.
I’m glad the Minister agrees and officially put it on record that she will now take off the time deadline on consultation and implementation.
