Kate Reid

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I'm going to keep these pretty general, just trying to understand a little bit better the Minister's thinking behind the changes to EHB. So in the business plan, one of the items is around stewarding physical health and contributing to fiscal sustainability, and HSS has an item that says income assessment process and fee structures established and incorporated into more HSS program and service delivery areas.

And my question is with regards to EHB specifically but health programs in general, how does this improve access to health care for all our residents per the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So as I said in my statement, structuring our social programs so they're designed to meet people where they're at rather than the other way around is the way to improve quality of life across all of our communities. So would the Minister consider piloting a project within income assistance that would reconfigure and tailor our existing system to the needs of the people in one particular region that maybe isn't dollarbased but is more based around their opportunities for employment. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There's a quote I saw online recently that I can unfortunately not attribute but it doesn't diminish its truth. Quote, "The role of a politician is not to get into power. The role of a politician is to act as a steward and caretaker for our society, to manage society for the betterment of all of us."

That quote sums up why I am here today. I want to help provide the direction that leads to the betterment of all of us in the NWT. But the job of governing "better" seemingly gets harder by the day, week, year, and decade. Some of it simply is that all the problems feel like...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Very simple question. Can the Minister please tell me how many staff work in the planning, research, and evaluation part of corporate management? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to the Minister for that. And thank you to her department for sending us some more information about EHB today. I really appreciate it. In the and it was a publicly accessible letter. Thank you for that.

So in that letter, it's noted that currently about 1,400 people are in the EHB program under the specified disease conditions list. The department estimates that that will grow when the specified disease condition list is dropped and the new policy rolls out in September, and the cost differential that health is estimating will be about $1.2 million. So it's...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's really great to hear. I am hoping the Minister may be able to commit to bring the findings of the client navigators back to us come budget time next year possibly? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to the Minister for that. I just yeah, the reason I'm highlighting this is because I'm not sure it ever has been highlighted before, and I know I have always been very keen and interested in how quickly the mechanisms of legislation churn out of each Assembly, and I think that there is quite a lot of interest in this side of the House to get things going as soon as possible. So I guess more of a comment than a question, Mr. Chair, is to let the Minister and the department know that we would be super keen to have more French language drafters if that's what...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I won't steal the Member from YK Centre's questions at all. It's about something different under this section.

So I want to thank the department and the Minister for flagging in their risk and mitigation activities of the business plan on page 211 that the department must regularly adjust legislation, programs, and services with the associated cost implications to ensure that alignment with federal initiatives, etcetera, etcetera.

I guess my question would be around the legislation division. So, you know, let alone the number of LPs in just simply the Department of...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to the department and the Minister for that. On the flip side of that, if you read the mandate, if you read the business plan, it sounds very much that the Minister and his department are seeking to increase the tools that would possibly allow for the courts to better pursue folks who are, for lack of better words, you know, ripping at our smaller communities and, indeed, the community of Yellowknife with the drug trade. So on the flip side of that, I'm very excited that, you know, folks are getting better options to them than just putting them in jail, but...

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to the Minister for that. I guess I'd just return the volley and say, you know, there are two student midwives who are here as summer students in the health work in town right now at this moment, and I guess I put back to the Minister, you know, where are you going to recruit from? Thank you, Mr. Chair.