Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good afternoon. As some of the Members of this House, including some of my Minister friends, have always said, better late than never. When you are leading this type of constituency life, you have to return calls and so on. I will have fun now. I am getting to my general comments, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, this is general comments on the Department of Health and Social Services. It would be an understatement to say that, indeed, this department is probably the largest and probably the best example of a political hot potato, ball to bounce as it were, of any department in this government. The Minister has come in for much criticism and the department staff in general, over the past sixteen to eighteen months. It is not for me to say if that criticism has been fair or whatever, history will write that story. I would like to say that the department itself seems to have lost its direction or vision somewhere along the way and I think that was indicative of the fiscal cuts that have to be made. When you make change, change at any time is hard to do, difficult change is even harder to do. There have been some difficult changes within the funding and the allowances paid out. Some of the Members have talked earlier about compassionate travel as an example. It has caused some problems. The situation regarding staffing, retention of nurses and the NWT Medical Association are some of the things that have gone on. I would like to reflect now, on some of the programs and services and studies that have been issued.

First and foremost, was the $750,000 for the Med-Emerg to study the health care needs of the Northwest Territories. The report, as many Members have brought up before, has basically been criticized very heavily by medical professionals in the Northwest Territories and seems to be sitting on a shelf and probably that is where it should remain.

Mr. Chairman, the honourable Member alludes that the report is sitting on a shelf. If he was here during the committee of the whole opening comments, he would know exactly what is taking place with the report, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do not think you have to be here to be able to read the opening comments. The only opening comment I can say about the opening remarks is about the comprehensive strategic plan for the department. If the Minister is saying that study was a strategic plan, then that would be open to debate between myself and the Minister. All I am saying is what is factual and that is the report was heavily criticized by different organizations who are professionals in the field and I am not. I would take that for face value of what it is. I would like to continue my opening comments, Mr. Chairman, and my opening comments included earlier talk and discussions surrounding the area of retention of our medical professionals. It would seem, at times, this was one of the concerns that was raised, not just in my region, but other regions of the NWT.

The area surrounding family planning, the Member had talked about making a statement on family planning and, hopefully, today, we might be able to hear a little bit from the department on that issue. The birthing centre he talked about earlier in Rankin Inlet was a success, but now is closed. That is a concern. It would be interesting to see what happened there. On boards and agencies under the Department of Health and Social Services, the people we talk about all the time, the front- line staff, have not had any wage increases since 1992. Mr. Chairman, that is six years. I would have liked to see some more money, hopefully put in, reprofiled, into the health and social services board budget for those types of boards and agencies of government. That is a concern.

One of the goals of the department is outlined in the program overview in the main estimates. It says that the NWT residents will achieve enhanced health and well-being and have equitable accesses to quality health and social services based on their needs. Those two points have been carried out by the department and I am pleased to see that. On the other hand, the sustainable health and social services system seems to have been having some problems and I would agree with other Members here today that when you try to raise some areas of concerns and criticisms, it seems you get retorts and replies in a negative manner when you are trying to provide constructive criticism. That is not the point. The point of being a Member of this Assembly, asking questions and everything has been well demonstrated in the past. If you checked the attendance record, I think I have been here for every sitting of questions and so on. Just because I was upstairs on a conference call, for Mr. Ng to make a little cheap point, we both can do that and I will have an opportunity to do it later.

Following up on my opening remarks, Mr. Chairman, is the concern surrounding the construction of the facility in Inuvik and the Baffin region. I understand some Members felt those projects should be put off for another year. They have been on the books now for ten years and they are a priority. To update certain Members of this House that indeed, the Baffin Regional Hospital has not had any type of major renovation since 1962, the population in that region has increased by more than 60 percent in that period of time and we are still using the same stand-alone facility. Last year, federal public works was in and found the facility to be redundant, Mr. Chairman, so that project should be moving ahead. I do have a concern with the federal dollars that have been committed in the renovation and replacement of the facility. Later today, Mr. Chairman, I will be asking some specific questions on the monies that should be forthcoming from the federal government on that agreement. With those monies that have been paid out and allocated already, I think there is about $6 million transferred for the Baffin facility and $3 or $4 million for the Inuvik facility.

One of the major concerns we had two years ago was that day we found the money that had been transferred by the federal government to the territorial government went to the consolidated revenue fund and had been expended, as per usual of this government. We do have to come up with those monies that have already been transferred and the negotiations to date have centred around whether it is a renovation or replacement of the facility in the Baffin. It is also contingent on the percentage of aboriginal population. In our case, 85 percent of the population is aboriginal and if it is a renovation or a replacement, 85 percent of that cost would be covered. I do understand that the Minister and his staff have been in negotiations and each time a question comes up, we still have no concrete portion of monies. I do not know if maybe the negotiations are delicate, or what have you, but it has been a ten-year period. The negotiations have been ongoing for quite a period of time. My level of comfort in the federal contribution is this, Mr. Chairman that, indeed, whatever money the federal government gives us, it means we do not have to leverage loans to the P3 to finance that hospital and which means it will be less exposure to the taxpayer over that 20-year period that the P3 facility for my region would have to be paid for. The more federal government money we have, the less debt we have to incur from the lenders of choice. This is my reason for continuing to ask questions on the formula that will be allocated to both of those facilities. Later today, I will have an opportunity to ask that question to the Minister and thank him for his time and ask him to try to keep his well known discretionary powers and his good sense of humour on keel, so that we could ask some serious questions without him getting angry or flicking pieces of gum wrappers at me. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I could go on for some more time, but noticing the clock, maybe some other Members would like to speak and I do have some questions when we get to the budget review itself. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank Mr. Picco for his comments. I look forward to specific questions from him. Thank you.

Agreed.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will ask Mr. Ramsden, who is more familiar with that specific aspect, to speak on this. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I could speak to whether or not there is some confusion coming out of the department and obviously we regret that if it has been caused. I think, however I need to draw a difference between the work that we have been doing in partnership with the board around services for the cognitively impaired, as it relates to a service that the Fort Smith board could provide to more than the residents of their catchment area or their community.

What we have found though in the process of a series of discussions with the board is that there had not yet been adequate work done between that board and the community it served around the very basic or primary or the basket of services that need to be provided for that community.

What we have simply said to the board is forget about designing services for people beyond your board until you get the work done in terms of meeting the needs of the residents that you serve most directly. Once that is done, there is still opportunity to look to services beyond their boundaries, but we thought it imperative that they first deal with their own community and designing services to meet the needs of those people first. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, perhaps I can deal with the second issue first. At the risk of perhaps contradicting my staff, I will deal with that later. Let me be quite clear that the department has an obligation to make recommendations to the Minister on design of services and the delivery system for the entire territories. We will continue to do that. As the Member indicates, we are best placed and are burdened with the responsibility to make recommendations on the territorial delivery system.

What we have said to the Fort Smith board is that they have a particular issue as it relates to the service to residents beyond what will become the Western Territory. They have a significant number of residents from Nunavut that they serve today, in their facility. We have suggested that it is difficult today to make a long-term commitment in terms of the source of funds and services for Nunavut residents. We will and must make recommendations and the Minister enforce final decisions, ultimately on design of the territorial system.

Perhaps I can suggest that the Member and I can meet later to get a clear view of the information that he is expecting. As I see it today, the level of concern that we have has risen as it relates to the Fort Smith board. While we initially embarked upon a fairly long-range strategic planning exercise with that board, it became apparent that they needed some much more direct support in areas of payroll, financial systems, basic administrative systems and staffing. We have suggested to them that we will first provide some supports in those areas simply to get their day-to-day operations to a point where the board itself has confidence. We have suggested to the board that I will participate directly in the recruitment of the CEO competition that is currently open. Once we have achieved that level of day-to-day stability, then we look forward to getting on with the longer range planning process with them. I will undertake to pursue directly a statement of the needs and fulfil that commitment to the Member in the next day. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.