Mr. Chairman, the MRHS, with Stanton, have used departmental support to develop an effective health planning strategy for Yellowknife and area. A steering committee of Members from MRHS, SYH and the department have been formed. Mackenzie Regional Health Services has the lead. We've hired the health consultant and the objective is to identify options and strategies to address the steps required to do so, so that an effective health planning strategy can be developed. That's where we're at with it at the present time, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, Inuvik is a little bit further down the road with theirs, but both of them are covered under definitive objective number two in 1994-95, which is to produce community health profiles for the Northwest Territories communities. Seeing as they started in the 1993-94 main estimates, the work is under way and it is not normal to carry them forward into the next year. But, they are being monitored under the community health profiles for NWT communities. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, in recognition of the fact that Deh Cho and the Dogrib Nation didn't have independent representation, they were both invited to and both had representatives attend the last board of chairs meeting with myself. They had full status at that table. The department may be the administrator of Mackenzie regional health services, but certainly there was independent representation at that meeting and they later participated with myself and all the board chairs when we discussed the Tobacco Tax issue.

As far as I'm concerned, we're on the way to forming those boards now. I say boards because I think the preference at the present time is to have two boards, although my preference, Mr. Chairman, is to have one. I don't have to tell people here that there's also the issue of Sahtu. The people of the Sahtu have said they want...

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I'm hoping this will be resolved very quickly and we could possibly talk about forming one board. I should point out that the other issue we're dealing with is the make-up of the Stanton board. That board will, very shortly, have appointed to it all the board chairs from the western Arctic and Kitikmeot so that there's representation from the boards on the Stanton Hospital and it will deliver a majority of services to it.

The other issue is Lutsel K'e and they will be addressed through the Stanton board, simply because that's where they draw their services from. In Hay River, there will be some changes in the board there. By the time we get around to working things out with the Dogrib, Deh Cho and Sahtu, we'll be able to say some time this year that the fledging board will be up and running. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, if I can get the agreement of Deh Cho and the Dogrib Nation that they will form one board, I can do this thing very quickly, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do feel that the MOU is a pivotal issue. I am one of the people who had the pleasure of working on that for a while. I shouldn't say pleasure. I know it is a frustrating experience. I was being a little ironic there, perhaps. I always thought, when that process was initiated, that the division was simple. The department's role was territorial-wide planning, policy, legislation and financial dealings with Ottawa, and that the boards could carve off and very usefully deal with the day to day administration of health services in their region.

I felt that if the boards basically could be given more freedom and flexibility to do that day to day work and perhaps the department could not keep quite such a close watch on their day to day responsibilities, correspondingly, the boards could agree that the policy, planning and territorial-wide financial issues and accountability of the Legislative Assembly would be a matter for the Minister of Health, with which they need not interfere. That was how, in my simplistic mind, I saw the MOU working out.

I haven't been briefed on all of the good work I know that has been done on that MOU over the last number of months. There have been consultations and meetings. Is that the general tenor of the MOU? The boards will have a clear authority carved out to deal with the day to day issues in their region and perhaps some more flexibility and autonomy than they now have, but they will in turn agree that the Minister has the duty to do territorial-wide policy, planning, legislation and the big picture budget issues. Is that what we are aiming for with this MOU as it is being developed?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are anticipating a definition of desired roles, responsibilities and authorities of each body, the identification of changes possible within existing directions by Cabinet and FMB, the identification of existing statutory and other barriers to desired changes, development of a process for future efforts and the priorization of areas for consideration. Yes, we want to mark turf out. The boards are wanting to mark their turf as well.

The difficulty that I have, at times, Mr. Chairman, is that, ultimately, the people of the Northwest Territories collectively, the Government of the Northwest Territories, on behalf of those people, pay the bill. If you have a board that goes out and does something that it believes it should do and it just says, well, send the bill to the Government of the Northwest Territories. In many instances, we are delivering the program on behalf of the federal government, who will only pay for "x" amount of procedures or "x" amount of days for a certain number of people and for a certain number of times per year for a procedure. That is where the difficulty comes in. If you are going to do the paying, you want to say what it is being spent on.

I think that our concern is not the delivery of health in the regions. I think the boards are doing an excellent job in delivering. We get some complaints, but I want to be able to say to Members, when there are complaints about health in a particular region, go and see the health board. Don't ask me any more because we have an agreement that that is their balywig. At the same time, I want to be able to try and encourage the boards to be responsible with the funds that they are spending and have them spend them in an economical way, and to take into consideration that they are in this together. There is only one pot of money and there is only one person paying and that is the taxpayer, and to be cognizant of that.

I believed, at times, that health boards have used the health system as a means of, in some instances, economic benefit to communities. I don't think we can look at health that way. I think we have to look at health as delivering to the people of the Northwest Territories a health care system that addresses their needs and ailments and, at the same time, it is done in a reasonably responsible fashion by spending as few pennies as possible. Mr. Patterson is right. It is a question of turf. That is the issue that we have to stake out with the boards. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I expect that the April meeting between the Minister and board chairs is important because this issue has been around for some time. I think that Ministers' goals about getting it resolved have not been met. I realize it takes two to tango on this issue. I would like to ask the Minister, does it appear that the boards are as anxious to resolve this issue as the Minister, the department and various committees of this legislature? Are they taking this next meeting seriously and does it look like everyone will be there to address this important issue?

Mr. Chairman, I believe the boards are taking this issue seriously. On February 1 or 2, I told them we would meet in April in the Kitikmeot. I sent the letters of invitation around. So far, I've had two takers and that is Deh Cho has agreed to come, the Dogrib Nation has agreed to come, and some of the other boards are having scheduling problems. The issue is too important for me not to go ahead with the meeting, so I'm now suggesting to the boards if they can't be there themselves as chairpersons, then they could send a representative from their board. If we're forced to put this back into May or June, I'm going to be sitting before this legislature again in September saying I haven't gotten anywhere with the boards. So I'm trying to force the issue with the boards and say, let's get together and do this thing in April, and roll up our sleeves, make some arrangements, if we can't make some arrangements, let's agree to disagree. I guess I will then have to find another way to do it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.