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.