Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’re spending $340 million a year on health and social services. It is by far the biggest growth department that we do have. We are going to be negotiating here to replace the Health Accord, the $42 billion Health Accord that currently exists with the federal government. That’s going to be a key piece.
I’ve talked today about issues about prevention, moving money to prevention and getting people to make the right personal choices, doing the things in communities that will keep people healthy, keep aging parents at home, that we won’t add to the costs. We have all these insured services that we want to protect. There are a number of things that we have to do. A lot of it is tied to the front end in terms of prevention, because unless we can make people make the right… Or unless people can make the right decisions, we will never have enough money to fix people, to repair them, to help them recover with the alcohol addictions and all the other physical ailments that will beset them. In the long term that’s the way forward, I believe. As well, we have to be very sure and clear that we’re efficient at how we do business.
I, as well, would like to congratulate Stanton. It is the flagship of the acute care side of health services in the Northwest Territories.