That's very gracious of you, Mr. Speaker. Your kindness knows no bounds. See, that's how you do it. Work with the Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, cuts here and cuts there, Mr. Speaker. We're hearing from the Finance Minister how they're unilaterally picked this number of $150 million; that's 50 a year, 50 a year, and a 50 a year before we end this government, Mr. Speaker. $50 million without having a general, good, thorough discussion with Members' perspectives on this side of the House. No, they do public they do policy by public release, Mr. Speaker.
So knowing that, this government should be thinking about its cuts in a way of, well, let's reverse the attitude and say how do we get more money into the government or how do we do business better? And that's what brings me to my point, Mr. Speaker. Sometimes the low hanging fruit is the obvious.
Mr. Speaker, there are over 300 people who leave Yellowknife airport, okay. It doesn't mean they're from Yellowknife. At the Yellowknife airport, they travel to Edmonton to get rheumatoid arthritis support. Now when you add that up, close to $2,000 a plane ticket and return, and that's not just the full cost but the point is that 2,000 we're talking over $600,000 spent on that service alone in the Northwest Territories just based on plane tickets. No different than the point made by my good colleague from Mackenzie Delta. If we want to start doing business better, we have to start thinking it through quite simply. Why are we flying people and driving people and sending them all these places when we can send a dentist to Inuvik? We'd be saving thousands of dollars. Why are we flying people to Yellowknife from Yellowknife to Edmonton for rheumatoid support when we could bring someone to the Northwest Territories at a fraction of the cost.
Mr. Speaker, I looked up online the average cost to pay a fulltime person, who's a doctor, and a specialist in rheumatoid arthritis is in the range of $270,000 a year. That's a pittance compared to what it costs just to buy plane tickets.
Mr. Speaker, if the Simpson government was really serious about looking at the bottom line, they look at how we could save money, not butcher it away at the budget. So I encourage them to use a scalpel, not a butcher approach, Mr. Speaker. And I will have questions maybe today, maybe tomorrow, we'll see who's the lucky Minister this afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
