Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's probably rare I get to make a statement like this. I'm sure we will all agree in this House that health care dollars are precious. It's very difficult to find agreement on anything some days, but I think we might be able to agree on that.
Mr. Speaker, the questions I'll be raising today are to the health care Minister, clearly, regarding the security of health care cards. And that's always been something of interest of mine because if I recall during one of my previous assemblies, we had more health care cards out there than citizens. What an interesting paradox it was at that time.
So, Mr. Speaker, my question specific to the Minister of health is, is she aware of how many health care cards we have out there, and does that number relate to the number of citizens we have in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate the question. You know, my very first job after high school was a health care card registration specialist, and one of the things my colleague taught me was is that we have very -- we have a lot of people that we're doing, we have to be doing investigations on that are outside of the territory. So that probably speaks to the time when the Member was in the House, that we started to change the way that we provide health care cards. And now they actually have an expiry date. So when you renew your health care card, you have to have an NWT address. Before they never had expiry dates. But I do not have the detail of how many people that we have as residents right now offhand and how many cards we have out there, but I am sure that I can get that data for the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'll take the Minister on their offer of how we know and how we know.
So, Mr. Speaker, other jurisdictions place health care dollars so high on their list, they actually make health care cards also an identity card. So in other words, their picture's on their health care card. And places such as Ontario, BC, and Quebec do this to ensure the quality of the health care is going to the right people. They can guarantee the number with the person. So, Mr. Speaker, my specific question is this: Is this an initiative that the department of health can take on to, again, protect the precious northern health care dollars? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, and it's -- you know, I find that question -- it was just a couple of weeks ago that I was having this conversation because renewal is up this year for health care cards. And on our health care cards, they are very plain. They have an expiry date and they have our name. And so that was the question that I asked my staff, to go back to the department to say how do we work with infrastructure? You know, we have this struggle right now in our communities where a lot of people are looking for identification cards. How do we work together to provide identification cards, have that information, the picture so it's the right person with the card so that, I've just tasked my staff to kind of look at options on where we are with all that kind of information and is that something that we can do and what is that cost going to cost us. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Well, it's funny because I get -- what's the right phrase -- I don't want to say targeted, but I get target -- I'll say it anyway. I get targeted for not giving my questions to the Minister or advancing this up, but yet she scooped my last question. So good on her for being on her toes, Mr. Speaker, instead of heels.
Mr. Speaker, that said, I just want to reaffirm, with the contract coming up, will she ensure that Members are involved in some type of early discussion and will she commit to this contract we are going to do health care card business differently and more improved? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just to clarify, I think it's the renewals that are up right now for Northwest Territories residents to make sure that they're applying within a couple of months of their health care card. I'd have to look into how or who is the procurement of how we do our health care cards. But that is all kind of the questions that I have just started to have because I think it's important that if we're doing this in the Northwest Territories, then we need to be making sure that those cards, everybody in our territory has one. Maybe having their picture on it, maybe it being their personal identification for flying, all that type of stuff, it would be a good thing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.
