Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Ms. Bisaro.
That’s good. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Committee, we’re on page 7. We’re going to commence at the second bullet point of health services, health services programs, not previously authorized, $5.561 million.
Agreed.
Supplementary health programs, not previously authorized, $2.302 million. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is for increased costs for medical travel. I just want to know what our total budget for medical travel is. That’s obviously a substantial increase, but perhaps not if the total medical travel budget is very large. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The projected cost will total about $30.8 million for 2012-13.
Thank you. So this would be something like an 8 percent increase over the year, projecting a little bit here. Recognizing this, what’s the projection that we’ve used for ‘13-14?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We’ll go to Mr. Aumond.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We will be looking at a base adjustment for next year. I guess the trend for medical travel hasn’t been, even over the last number of years it’s gone up and gone down. Again, as the Minister stated, it is a bit of a demand-driven activity. So the rationale for the increase this year is an increase in the number of patients and also the cost to transport the patients as well. So it’s a combination of the two that’s driven this, but as I mentioned earlier, this will be one of the activities where we’ll be considering a base adjustment, given what we’ve seen over the last couple of years. Thank you.
Thank you. Obviously, we have approved the budget for ‘13-14. So I assume Mr. Aumond just talked about the ‘14-15 year?
Thank you. That’s correct.
Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Committee, we’re on page 7, supplementary health programs, not previously authorized, $2.302 million.
Agreed.
Community wellness and social services, not previously authorized, $5.9 million. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In some ways similar questions with the adults in residential care. These are increased costs. What are our total costs, and while we’re at it, is this also sort of uneven year to year, or is there any kind of a trend here? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The trend has been slow and steady increases. The information we have here indicates that there was $1.2 million in 2006-07. In 2012-13 that number, from the information I have, is $8.6 million. In 2006-07 it was for 35 adults. For 2012-13 it was for 55 adults. Thank you.
I wasn’t writing and hearing fast enough, but did I hear $8.6 million was our base for this year and the $2.864 is on top of that? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For clarification I’ll go to Mr. Kalgutkar.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. For southern placements in adults, the total projected expenditure is for ‘12-13 at $8.6 million. Also included in that activity is costs for psychiatric services associated with those clients, which is around $1.3 million. Total expenditures for that area are about $10 million for ‘12-13. For children in southern placements, total expenditures there are around $7.6 million for ‘12-13. Thank you.
Thank you. Obviously, it looks like, according to those figures, we’re talking about a 28 percent increase for adults and something along those lines for children. It seems like an extraordinary increase there to me. Is there any explanation for that? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is another demand-driven area, but there has been a steady increase. The program review office, one of the tasks there that have been given is to look at these areas. One of the questions that has occurred in the past is, is there a sufficient capacity in the North or can the capacity be built in the North to have the facilities up here to repatriate those services. We put in facilities in Hay River, for example, to do that. Over the years, way back, Trailcross was built. There’s been other receiving homes built to try to repatriate services, the Territorial Treatment Centre up here and now we’ve done that with the thought that we would be able to minimize our reliance on southern placements, and that is the case for a period of time, but over time, as the statistics show, the demand creeps back up. So we’re looking at that area in terms of not only efficiencies, but is that a service when you look at the specific case requirements of all the individuals, adults and children, can we have and do we have the capacity to put the infrastructure in place, but also have the trained staff and keep that money in the North. Thank you.
Thank you. I appreciate the Minister’s comments there. I think it’s definitely a concern. I am aware, too, of the work we’ve done to repatriate people, adults anyway, and of course we did do a thorough look at this with the Child and Family Services Act review during the 16th Assembly and made a lot of recommendations. Had they been in place, I suspect we shouldn’t have this increasing problem, at least with the children side and ultimately with the adult side as well.
Can we expect to see those recommendations put in place during ‘13-14 to start to deal with this? Thank you.
Thank you. We are going to apply ourselves and resources to answer the questions that we’ve been talking about in the House today and we’ll be coming forward with the cost projections. We have to do the needs analysis almost on a client-by-client basis to see how different and how varied they are, to sort out those complexities, but we intend to do that in the coming year so we can make some hard decisions about the potential to first repatriate and try to identify with more clarity the trends, and what do we need to do on the prevention side. Thank you.
Thank you. I appreciate that we’re going to look at this and figure out how to try and repatriate people, including children. I guess the frustrating part is the Standing Committee on Social Programs did have a close look at this, made recommendations. I don’t think the program review office needs to redo that work. What’s needed now is some implementation on those recommendations.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I’ll take that as a comment unless Mr. Miltenberger would like to reply. Go ahead, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are not going to reinvent the wheel here. We are going to look at the work that was done, but with an eye to trying to identify costs if we proceed with repatriation. The client base is constantly changing so we have to make sure and do that review, as well, to make sure we know what the needs are. We are going to make full use of the work that was done by committee.
I appreciate the Minister’s comments there. I just would observe that many of the recommendations were of a systemic nature and totally in line with the prevention side the Minister had mentioned. I hope the Minister will take account for that and put some of his effort into implementation.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I believe that was asked and answered already. Page 7, Health and Social Services, operations expenditures, community wellness and social services, not previously authorized, $5.9 million, total department, not previously authorized, $15.165 million.
Agreed.
Page 8, Justice, operations expenditures, community justice and corrections, not previously authorized, $316,000. Total department, not previously authorized, $316,000.
Agreed.
Page 9, Education, Culture and Employment, operations expenditures, education and culture, not previously authorized, $1 million. Income security, not previously authorized, $956,000. Total department, not previously authorized, $1.956 million. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The million dollars, is that to look after Nunavut artifacts at our cost? Is that what that’s all about?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s to compensate us for providing that service to Nunavut.
I just want to say that I think this is a responsibility of the government, and particularly in this situation where the Northwest Territories split in half – half of ourselves became Nunavut – I think there’s a real responsibility to look after artifacts until such time as Nunavut is able to take that on. I appreciate the work that’s been done to secure that million dollars and help us with that responsibility.
Page 9, Education, Culture and Employment, operations expenditures, education and culture, not previously authorized, $1 million. Income security, not previously authorized, $956,000. Total department, not previously authorized, $1.956 million.
Agreed.
Page 10, Transportation, operations expenditures, highways, special warrants, $1.2 million. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to ask a question about this special warrant. It would seem to me that we should have had a better understanding of the costs of our winter roads. We should have been able to gauge ahead of time that we were going to have this expense. Why did we need to do a special warrant for this particular work?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This particular request deals with our business with the industry, working with industry to construct winter roads, and they compensate us fully for that and was done during a time when there was no opportunity for the Legislature to meet. This is working with industry, they assist us and give us direction on the winter road construction and they compensate us.
So just to follow up, this is not activity. I gather this is, I think this is in the Sahtu area or from Wrigley and up, but I gather that this is not an activity or the activity in that area could not be foreseen when we were doing the budget. Is that correct?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that we’ll go to Mr. Aumond.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is correct. The request was unanticipated and it came at a time, as the Minister said, between sessions and the work had to take place at the beginning of the winter. It was to provide some services for industry for which they provided compensation to the Department of Transportation for.
Page 10, Transportation, operations expenditures, highways, special warrants, $1.2 million. Highways, not previously authorized, negative $5.025 million. Marine, not previously authorized, negative $409,000. Total department, special warrants, $1.2 million. Total department, not previously authorized, negative $5.434 million.
