When? When, Mr. Chairman?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Madam Minister.

Mr. Chairman, community health programs are reviewed annually and any changes that might be necessary are brought forward in the business plans and discussed with standing committees. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Minister. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. They report annually, but I am talking specifically of this program on its own, not all the other ones put together. I think we do have to get statistics from each community to see exactly what the different results are. I touched on different studies that are there. We have the different communities with regard to cancer statistics, other statistics like diabetes, there are all these other ailments out there. It would be good to pinpoint exactly what the community stats are on each one of those.

If sugar diabetes is going up in a particular community, the question would be why. The same thing with regard to other diseases that may be in the communities. I think that if we could get that type of information to see if there is a trend out there, and how we as a government are administering those different programs and services to ensure that we are able to control or monitor them a lot better than we are doing today. That is a possibility.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Madam Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under our various initiatives within the department, very shortly we are going to be bringing to the standing committee the Addictions and Mental Health Strategy. We also have a Continuing Care Strategy that covers off a number of the areas that are covered under the community health programs. Without undertaking in-depth reviews of each of these individually, I just want to assure the Member that we do continue to stay focused on these areas through various internal strategic planning exercises. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Minister. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do not know how to say this because there are a lot of people I know who are disabled, who, never mind walking out the door, but a lot of them have the situation where they cannot go to the health centre. They cannot even go to the store. They are bedridden or they have such a bad case of arthritis or what not, that the whole question of moving and mobility and getting around is a major problem in a lot of our communities. Yet these people call the health centre, they call someone for a particular aspect, they are ridiculed because they are either calling too much -- go get a taxi, find your own way here. I think those are the little things that we may take for granted, but being elderly or disabled, it is not a funny fact of life. It is serious, especially with these disabilities that we will all come to meet some time in the future, with regard to arthritis and other diseases that creep up on you the older you get.

That is where my problem is, and I see that we have to do a thorough review to ensure that everyone's rights are being considered when we deliver programs and services. Not just look at it from a medical side, but look at it from the patient's side to see exactly if they are getting what we are offering, and if we are not offering it, why not? I think it is important that we look at the overall question.

I think that we have to do more with respect to disabilities, especially when we have these programs in the communities, that we do not start cutting these programs out and not replace them with something that is going to do just as well, especially when we are talking about people who are not able to get around or able to access the health centres. They may need people to go from the health centre to serve the needs of these residents. I would like to ask the Minister, will she seriously look at that?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Madam Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are not cutting out programs, Mr. Chairman. In fact, we are doing quite a lot in terms of trying to make them as effective and as responsive to the needs of people as possible. We do this through a number of different avenues, not the least of which was the recent conference on persons with disabilities, the Count Me In Conference, which I spoke to here in the Legislature. There is extensive work going on in terms of consultation with people who receive these services, and that information is fed back to the department to make sure that the programs are as effective as possible. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Minister. We are on page 6-27, community health programs, budget summary, total operations and expenses, $21,971,000. Agreed?

Page 6-29, community health programs, grants and contributions, grants, total contributions, $20,488,000. Agreed?

Information item, active positions, page 6-31, information item, boards of management active positions.

Page 6-33, details of work performed on behalf of others.

I was going to ask a question on active positions, if we could go back.

What is the committee's wish? The Member is requesting to go back to page 6-31. Do we agree?

We will go back to page 6-31. Mr. Krutko.