Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee. Mr. Speaker, in my Member’s statement, in two and a half minutes you can’t do much to kind of try and capture and summarize all of the questions and comments surrounding this, but I can clearly tell you today that many, many of my constituents came out to a public meeting that was sponsored by the Department of Health and Social Services and, without exception, were not in support of the changes to the Extended Health Benefits Program. It was a thoughtful and respectful exchange, but I am here to represent the people of Hay River and I’d like to ask the Minister of Health if, when we go back after all this public consultation and all the debate in this House and all the work that’s gone into this, when an initiative comes before the Cabinet, I remember this, there’s a briefing note that accompanies it and under a heading called purpose, there is a brief description. Then it goes into the background and the political implications and all that stuff. But if the Minister could just tell us what is the purpose succinctly for the overhauling of the extended health care benefits in the Northwest Territories at this time. Thank you.
Thank you. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The purpose of overhauling the Supplementary Heath Benefits Program is, one, there is a group of our citizens who need supplementary health benefits that are excluded from the current program; two, the way it is designed now is administratively cumbersome and Member...(inaudible)...talked about the administrative difficulties, specified conditions is run by exceptions; and, third, there is no appeal mechanisms for people who are not happy with the system we have now, so we needed to clear out those issues; and, fourth, the program as it exists now is not fair or equitable or sustainable. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I could swear that I have heard the Minister say repeatedly that this overhaul of extended health care benefits does not have anything to do with cost saving, it does not have to do with money. I think we’ve all heard her say that. Okay. Yet, now in the purpose of the overhaul she’s saying that it is about money, because it’s about the sustainability of the program. I’d like to ask the Minister, in her point number one, when she refers to the group of citizens who are excluded who need support, who need help with their costs, what kind of thought in putting together the proposed policy changes was given to where the resources would come from to include that group of people? What kind of consideration was given to that and why today do we have a scenario where it appears that the GNWT is taking away from one group to support another? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the Member states that we are overhauling the Supplementary Health Benefits Program, but as the Member knows… I have distributed the article in the Slave River Journal, which did a very good study, a cross-country survey of 12 jurisdictions, and every single jurisdiction including and Yukon and excluding Nunavut, because Nunavut has the same thing as us. But all of the 11 jurisdictions have supplementary health programs that are income tested or there is a deductible, there are premiums, they are capped. So we’re not inventing a new wheel here. This is something that all jurisdictions do for supplementary health benefit. It’s not for insured health benefits, as Member Yakeleya talked about. Those are the essential health services. This one is supplementary. This is the program that in the rest of the country people do pay for part of the service. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, in fact the Minister, by comparing our program to that and other jurisdictions is saying that our program is costing this government too much money and we’re looking at saving money. So to that argument, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister what kind of financial analysis has been done to actually prove out what these changes will cost us.
Mr. Speaker, I don’t think enough analysis has been done, because I think the new program is going to cost us far more than the existing program. One of those areas where it’s going to cost us is when seniors decide to leave the Northwest Territories. Mr. Speaker, seniors, we don’t need to go into the all details of this, but what they contribute to our communities and their volunteer efforts and everything, but they are also contributing to the personal income tax that this Territory receives. They are also contributing to the transfer from Canada just by their very presence here in the Northwest Territories. They often are close by because they’re part of a larger extended family that is also all here.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask the Minister what thought she has given to the ramifications, financial ramifications, not to mention those unquantifiable other contributions that are made by seniors in the Northwest Territories, but what kind of quantifiable, monetary, full costing analysis has been done when seniors and their families start to leave the Northwest Territories. Because it’s fine to say that we’re a unique jurisdiction, and we are. Let’s recognize that. That’s why you have isolated post allowance, northern living allowance… I’m sorry. I’ll stop there. Thank you.
I think one thing we should not lose sight of, because it keeps getting repeated, is that this proposal is taking away benefits from seniors in order to pay for benefits for those who are excluded, because that is totally not true. Most people… Mr. Speaker, what this program is doing, is doing what the government has to do. The government has an obligation to help those who need help from us. There are people, low-income families who are excluded from most essential benefits such as eye care and dental. So for some people that might seem small, but that’s important and government has a role to play in that.
The fact of the matter is we could work the Supplementary Health Program so that the vast majority of seniors will be covered. The proposal we have in place gives 80 percent of our non-aboriginal population a package that’s as good or better than they would get if they worked for the government. That’s a very, very generous program. We are making the program fairer by asking those of us who have more than others, and some of them include seniors but a vast majority are not seniors, and we are trying to make the program fair. I understand, Mr. Speaker, this is a very, very difficult thing to do, but it’s one that we need to look into. Thank you.
Your final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the Minister would have me to believe that this is just a coincidence that we are going to be reducing the support that we provide to our seniors while at the same time looking for a way to help those other lower income Northerners to receive benefits. So it’s just a kind of coincidence that this all happened at the same time and the two are not related at all. If you listen to the Minister, that’s what she is trying to portray.
Mr. Speaker, I am all for helping those people who have no other insurance and need help. I am all for that. But surely this government could have been a little more creative and thought a little further afield as to how we could find the resources to do that without having to impact the benefits of others.
I’d like to ask the Minister what kind of thought was given to that, because I think everybody knows this government seems to have a lot of money for a lot of things that are of questionable value, but when it comes to supporting the people who’ve given -- a lot of them have given their entire lives to this Territory -- I’m sure the government could have come up with some other ideas of where to get that money to support that other group of people. What kind of thought was given to that?
Mr. Speaker, this Extended Health Benefits Program is not new. It’s something that every government grapples with. We’re not inventing a new wheel here. We look at what is available across the country. We looked at what’s the use of it.
Mr. Speaker, we have a proposal before us that would cover the vast majority of seniors, the vast majority of the population who need support from us. We are asking that those of us, and that includes me and many other people who are going to be seniors one day and who hope to be financially better off, that we make our contribution so that we help those seniors down the road and our younger folks, university students or newly starting a job, a single mother with kids, that they get the basic care that they do not get right now. I believe, at the end of the day, government has a responsibility and the role to look after the poor first, look after the most vulnerable first. We will look after seniors and we will look after everybody who needs us, but no government can afford to do extended health benefits with no questions asked and pay for supplementary health benefits for somebody who’s making two, three, four, five hundred thousand a year. The fact of the matter is we have those people. Thank you.
The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
