Thank you, Mr. Chairman. They would more than likely be new individuals involved if you were to transfer services from one jurisdiction to another. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I have had the opportunity for the last two years to question all of the Ministers. If it could make any difference to serve my people, it should have happened the past two years, I do not believe this forum today is going to make any difference, but we want to focus on the things that we did according to the plan, things that we did not do according to our plan; things that have fallen short. When we were elected we appointed or selected Members of the Cabinet, the Premier and the Minister of Finance, in their statement, several times stated that this government is to be compassionate, fair. When we talk about balancing the budget many times, it was indicated that the budget will not be balanced on the backs of the poor. Having said that, Mr. Chairman, like Mr. Enuaraq indicated earlier, that he was concerned because he had been approached by many people from his area regarding the compassionate travel which was dropped from the program delivery. In my capacity as the Member of the Legislature for my area, I have been approached by people from Pelly Bay, Gjoa Haven and Taloyoak sometime to a point where people were almost pleading to get the program back. As I have indicated, we want to be compassionate, we want to be fair and we are not going to balance the budget on the backs of the poor. I am wondering, having recognized that, the philosophy and the goals of the government. My question to the Minister is, will the Minister reinstate the compassionate travel for the sake of the poor people, especially those depending upon the social assistance? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, first of all compassionate travel for individuals on social assistance is not within the responsibility of the Department of Health and Social Services because the income support is with my colleague, Mr. Dent. But having said that, even if it were still within the jurisdiction of Health and Social Services, it was a tough decision to make. I can say that it was not taken lightly, and it was considered in great length. We discussed it in Cabinet when we knew that this reduction would bring a lot of controversy as it has as all Members have been approached at various times about this issue. When I go to leaders' forums or health board forums or meetings throughout the north, it does come up, but I go back to saying that our first priority is to the patients who require the treatment. If we could, we would provide compassionate travel for all those families or individuals who required it, but we just do not have the financial resources to continue to provide all the programs that we did. We have to set the priorities and unfortunately, compassionate travel was not much as we would like to, was not one of the priorities when it came down between having travel for the patient or having travel for escorts, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My long question was used to make up one of the questions I am not going to be asking. The final question, Mr. Chairman, is the honourable Minister indicating that we, the government, cannot provide a compassionate travel for a family of a dying person, all of the family of a dying person, but at least one person of a family of a dying person, the government could provide travel? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, as I indicated in my earlier response to Mr. Ningark, the boards do have policies in place for the medical travel and I know that they do make exceptions, depending on the circumstances and, how would you say, sometimes use their discretion in respect to travel for escorts. That is what I said earlier in response to Mrs. Groenewegen in respect to having local decision making, local input into recognizing what the priorities and what the issues are at a local level and responding to those issues accordingly, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

(Translation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to ask a short question in regard to women who go to shelters. Sometimes they bring many of their children to some of these shelters. I heard once there was a woman who left for a shelter just because she wanted to leave her husband. It seemed like when she wanted to go back home, she was able to return home at her own discretion. It seems to me that the men should be the ones taken out of the community, and I think that this way, the government would be saving money if they can remove the man out of the community instead of the woman. I feel that the social workers should be more open to this idea. How has this situation been improved within the department? I feel that the man should be removed out of the community instead of the woman because sometimes a woman may have more than one child. So, I am going to ask the Minister how he can deal with this situation as a Minister? Thank you. (Translation ends)

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I think it is a valid issue the Member brings up. It is not an easy one to deal with. I think that how it has to be addressed is in the respect of community standards again on what is acceptable and not acceptable in different communities. I think the trend is that family violence against spouses is a profile of the issue that has been raised over the years. As a result, there has been a lot of active involvement of the community, individuals in the community whether they are non-profit organizations or whether it is community councils and leaders who have taken on the initiative to provide programming and shelters within their communities. I think the time will come in these situations where peer pressure from the community to have the man, in most cases, leave the community or be impacted more severely than the female come about. I think it is evolving. It is just a matter of time before more initiatives progress in that area, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

(Translation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My next question will be a final question. In Montreal there is Baffin House where patients go. Some women are married to a white person and vice versa. For instance, if I were to be married to a white person, some people tend to have accommodation in a hotel rather than the Baffin House. I have seen the situation occurring. I think that all patients should be treated equally whether they are married to a white person or not. I am going to ask this question, how often does a person who is married to a white person stay in Baffin House? I am just going to ask the Minister whether the government is treating people unfairly in this sense? There were some Baffin people down there who were staying in a hotel, and there were some staying in the Baffin House. Am I misunderstanding this? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (Translation ends)

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, without knowing the full circumstances on the specifics, I cannot speak the specifics that the honourable Member mentions. I think that what I would say is that different employers have different programs and benefits for their employees where some of them provide for their employees when they are out on medical travel to be allowed to stay at hotels and have different compensation structure. The Baffin House, from what I understand would be open to any individual coming out of the Baffin going to Montreal for medical treatment that required accommodation. By the same token, I think, if individuals choose not to stay, want to make other accommodations arrangements, then I believe there is some flexibility for some allowance to support them in that regard as well, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would recommend that after the break we deal with Mr. Todd who is next on the list and that we now conclude Mr. Ng. Thank you.

Agreed.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon. Mr. Chairman, just two years ago when we first got elected to this Assembly, we all know that we were in deficit of $150 million. Now my question to the Finance Minister today is that how much deficit are we in today after two years? Thank you.