Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are to the Minister of Finance, the money man, in terms of the supplementary health benefits. In terms of this issue, I want to ask the Minister of Finance, in his understanding that if we are to continue on with the existing program as it is now, could we, in his financial forecast, can we sustain this type of program?
The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, like every jurisdiction in the country and probably in the world, we are facing an increasing and consistent rise in our health expenditures. Member Bromley said it should be at the top of our list when it comes to our priorities, but when it comes to our expenditures it definitely is and it continues to be.
We have, on the supplementary health side, a growing demand for the service. Plus we know, as the Minister has pointed out, we’re trying to capture those folks that aren’t currently captured, about 2,300 people.
As we have every budget, we are going to be pressed to make decisions. We have far more needs than we have resources and we are constantly looking at how do we control and manage our expenditures. At the same time, are there ways to boost or increase our revenues? We are talking now about trying to consolidate what we’ve done. We’re talking now -- having lived through the last two years of the most turbulent economic times since the Great Depression -- of that pressure that is still there for us to be very vigilant and frugal.
So are things sustainable? We are going to continue to have to make choices. We’ve been asked and told to look at ways of being creative, look at how we do business. The program review unit was put together to help us find those efficiencies. This has been identified back in the 14th Assembly as an issue that needs to be addressed, and we are constantly going to be, until the end of this term, working to manage our finances. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, that’s another question I want to pose to the Minister of Finance. In terms of sustainability, in terms of the program that we offer now and what we are discussing right now through the government’s initiative to propose changes to the supplementary health benefit, there are going to be some tough choices coming down in the next couple of years in terms of what we receive from the federal government and what we want in our communities. I spoke of that very passionately about the needs in Colville Lake, for example, and many other small communities also are going to be asking about some of those basic services.
With this plan that the Minister of Health is proposing, this policy, are we able then to look at some of these basic needs that we so desperately want in places like Colville Lake or in the Sahtu?
Mr. Speaker, we’re going to be challenged with our core services, like the Member has talked about, the basic medical services in communities. We’re going to be challenged with supplementary health. What we are trying to do is reprofile some finding. We are looking at putting in on a supplementary program some income testing to assist us to do that to control the costs, to be able to provide the service to all Northerners, including the working poor that currently aren’t included. At the same time, recognizing, as we look in our budgets and we look at our strategic initiatives and the work in the small communities, that there are significant unmet issues in those communities.
Our challenge is going to be to deal, first and foremost, with our core services. I mean, that’s what we expect in every community. So we have that challenge and everything we can do, be it building an office building in Yellowknife that could free up $100 million a year, be it looking at inclusive schooling, looking at other formulas that may not be set up the most proper way and we could look at being more efficient, those are all areas we are going to be looking at that the Members have told us to go and do the work and be creative and find our efficiencies. So our challenge is going to be to do that to meet the very needs that the Members raise so passionately in this House today.
I would just like to recognize that the time for oral question has expired, but I will allow the Member to conclude his supplementary and final question. Supplementary question, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, I ask the Minister of Finance, in your analysis as the Finance Minister, if we were to go ahead or not go ahead with what we’re talking about today in terms of long-term impact benefits, again, I will say to the people in the Sahtu, this would greatly hinge on my decision as to basic services that we do not receive in the Sahtu communities or any other small communities that we so desperately want to see in our communities. This is very important to me as a Member, as a Member who represents a community that has a facility like Colville Lake that, still today -- we talk about it -- has a honey bucket system for the washroom in their health centre. This is crazy. So, again, this is what we are faced with in terms of the Supp Health Program and issues that we have to face in our small communities when we go back to our region.
Can I ask the Minister again, in terms of is this program, again, in all his analysis as the Finance Minister, saying our current health system and as for the basic needs that we’re asking for now in our small communities?
Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, if we continue to do business as usual and if we continue just to accept the fact that we’re going to have continued expansion to programs like this, supplementary ones, when we know that we’re not meeting all our core services, that if we don’t come up with creative ways and if we don’t recognize that the issue of universality in areas like supplementary programs is not affordable in any jurisdiction including ours, then it will limit our ability to meet the needs that we have in the core service areas that currently we are struggling to meet. Thank you.
Your final question, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister indicated that over the years we are going to have to look at the list of priorities in terms of how we spend our money, how we look at revenue, how we want to be able to sustain our needs in the Northwest Territories. Some of these priorities, for example, are some of the expenditures that I guess we can call in question. For example, the issue of building liquor stores in another region here over the front-line service workers. Is there some of this that we are going to look at in terms of what do we put ahead of the front-line health services in our communities?
Mr. Speaker, The Government of the Northwest Territories has responsibility that covers 360 degrees of the compass. We have to allocate money. We have legal responsibilities, mandated responsibilities. We have responsibilities that are there by choice and by need. Our challenge is going to be, as we do for every business planning process, to make those choices. There is discussion in the House that the Member for Kam Lake pointed out. We have many challenges ahead of us, unmet needs, pressures to contain our costs and control our expenditures at the same time, trying to look at revenues but not raise the tax burden on Northerners. We have to make those choices. We have been making them collectively for the 15 years I have been here and all the years before that this Assembly has been in existence. I want to point out once again that we have managed to do that successfully during the three most turbulent years in our economic history since the 1920s. Thank you.
Item 9, written questions. Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to seek unanimous consent to return to item 8 today on the Order Paper, oral questions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
---Unanimous consent granted
Item 8, oral questions. Mr. Hawkins.
