Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions today for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Obviously there was much anticipation on her Minister’s statement from earlier today. I’d like to begin by asking the Minister, obviously she’s been getting a lot of questions about the advancement of this 2007 policy up until today and the decision that Cabinet has made to rescind that policy. I’d like to ask her, in going forward, how exactly is she going to engage Regular Members on any of the proposed changes and the implementation of those changes, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We will do that, as we have done all along. This is a consensus government, and contrary to what might be spoken here, Members here know that we work together on any of the major changes. So, Mr. Speaker, I will continue to do that as we move forward. Thank you.
I’m just wondering why sometimes it might take two years for the Minister and the Cabinet to realize it is a consensus government. It took two years of work by all Members of this House to turn this policy around. It took outrage by the public to get this policy turned around. Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day, it took two years.
I’d like to ask the Minister, maybe she could comment on that. Why did it take two years for the current Cabinet to make the right call on this policy? Thank you.
I think the important message today is that we have moved this program forward. The Cabinet announcement is based on the Joint Working Group work and Joint Working Group report, and that document will be tabled later today. It has a number of suggestions on how we should improve our Supplementary Health Benefits Program and I think it’s important for us to move forward.
As Member Groenewegen suggested, there are a lot of things that we need to do, and that Members on the other side agree on, with respect to the Health Benefits Policy. I look forward to working with the members of the Standing Committee on Social Programs and everyone else on the other side and my Cabinet colleagues to get the job done within the remainder of this Assembly. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to have faith that the Minister and Cabinet can get this done by the end of the life of this current government. I’d like to ask the Minister how she intends to accomplish this feat in 10 months. Thank you.
The discussions that I’ve been having with the Members on the other side with respect to this issue is that Members want us to get some stuff done that were suggested in the Joint Working Group report.
In my Minister’s statement this morning, I talked about the fact that we need to look at health benefits, a program not being the first option but encouraging people to get private insurance first, parity with the NIHB program, the pharmaceutical strategy to include generic drugs and drug pricing and efficiencies and the elimination of grandfathering. So there are a number of very specific items that the Joint Working Group is recommending and the Members on the other side agree on. So I will be making an announcement about the process by which we will get the job done within the life of this Assembly. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. During the last two years, one of the criticisms that was levelled at the department was the fact that it was hard for information data, research to get into the hands of Members so we could make informed decisions. As this moves forward, maybe the Minister could comment on how sure she is that she has the ability inside of the Department of Health and Social Services to actually get the information that is relative, that’s relevant, that is going to be required for decisions to be made as we move this forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
With all due respect, I categorically reject any notion that our department or myself as the Minister are not giving out the information. All the information was out there. The issue with the changes with supp health is that people just didn’t want it. It wasn’t the lack of information. So, Mr. Speaker, we will work as we have always with the Members on the other side and give detailed information.
We need to do more work on how we are going to implement the pharmaceutical strategy. We need to do more work on how we encourage people to get third-party insurance. We need to work on how we encourage employers to offer third-party insurance. We need to do more work on how we make all our programs equal and equitable.
So there’s a lot of work to be done. So we are going to do that work and we will bring that back to the Standing Committee on Social Programs, because I believe all the Members agree that these are important programs, but changes need to be made. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
