Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Social Programs Committee, I will soon get a chance to go through the Cuff report in detail and have a chance to analyze many of the recommendations and comment back to the Minister, but I wanted to take this opportunity, as I may not get another before the August 15th deadline for responses, to discuss some of the problems I see with the Cuff report at just a cursory level.
Mr. Speaker, there seems to be a lot of data and a lot of information on problems within our existing health care system in the Territories but not enough, as usual, on how we might address these problems. There is also no evidence that a new organizational structure, as proposed by Cuff, will improve the present situation.
Boards as well, Mr. Speaker, are really singled out in the report as being problematic. There seem to be too many of them. They do not understand their roles. They do not understand their responsibilities. They are not accountable. They lack training.
There has not been much talk about the extent to which outside factors have probably influenced a lot of this, Mr. Speaker. What about the inability to recruit health care professionals? What about the difficulty in providing service in remote areas?
Mr. Speaker, I cannot imagine that additional board training at the Stanton Regional Hospital would have had any impact on how quickly we were able to recruit professionals with the recent nursing shortage and closure of the surgery ward.
Mr. Speaker, the most significant shortcoming that I can see, just at first view of this report, is there does not seem to be a real look at self-government, Mr. Speaker, and its present and future impact on governance and service delivery.
The development of some of our boards was seen as an intermediate step to self-government. I think of the Dogrib Community Services Board, for example, Mr. Speaker. Can we really have talked about partnerships and capacity building for the last ten years and then turn around and recentralize all of the service delivery?
One more point, Mr. Speaker. When asked about consultation, the report writer and the Minister always insisted 300 people were consulted in the process. Mr. Speaker, I think when they were consulted they were asked to comment on the current state of health care service delivery in the Northwest Territories. They were not posed with the idea that sweeping change was imminent and, "How do you feel about that?" I think it is one thing to ask them in crafting the report for comment and another now to shop this around in the communities and at the regional government level. Thank you.
-- Applause