Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, it is a bit difficult to get into a detailed discussion about this report today, and I look forward to what will probably happen in the fall when we have this document and the government's response in front of us. Then I think we can have a much more meaningful discussion. The recommendations in this document are at such a high level that it is hard to understand how they are going to translate those into action by the government. I think it will be essential for us to have the two documents to really get into it.
These are all good recommendations but I think that the one that really caught me was recommendation 10, and that is the one on prevention. I think that we have a tremendous opportunity in the North to dramatically reduce the number of interventions on the health and social services side if we can get more people making healthy lifestyle choices. It is going to take a real investment by this government in order to get there, and that is part of the problem. In my years in government, I have not seen any willingness by the government to take the steps that are necessary to really get into a meaningful prevention program.
This ties into some of those issues that we have talked about in the last couple of days. For instance, when the whole system is in deficit and when we are arbitrarily saying that all of our health boards that are in deficit have to come up with funds to recover from them, it means that they are busy struggling to come up with adequate funds to deal with issues that they are presented with right now. They have to deal with people who are not well, both on the health side physically and mentally, and there is no room left for them to make these big investments that we need to make on the preventative side, which could save us an awful lot of money in the long run.
The issue that we talked about, for instance in deficit recoveries, makes it impossible for our boards currently to think about getting into the preventative side. There is no way that health and social services authorities in the Northwest Territories, right now, can possibly take on more preventative work if most of them are now in the process of trying to recover from deficits. All they can do to recover from a deficit is take some of their approved funding and not spend it on people or services, but give it back to the department to pay for their deficit. Is it any wonder we have a shortage of people involved in providing physical therapy to northern residents? Is it any wonder that we are short of nurses and having to shut down facilities? I do not think so.
I am going to be interested to see how the Minister responds to these recommendations, particularly recommendation 10, which to me is one of the key ones, because 20 years from now, our entire budget is going to be eaten up by the demands of people requiring assistance if we do not find a better way to invest in prevention. I am really going to be watching to see how the Minister comes back with how he is going to deal with these recommendations and how he is actually going to channel something into prevention when we do not have the money right now to deal with our immediate problems. How is he going to deal with getting the money that we need to do this? That is going to be the challenge.
If we do not find it, we are not going to have any money left for any other programs in 20 years. I hope that he is going to sit down with his Cabinet colleagues over the summer and have a meaningful discussion about where we are going in the health and social services field and where we can go with the social agenda, and come back to us with some really good, concrete recommendations. I am hoping the Minister will address that issue when he has a chance to respond to my questions.
One other area I was struck by, in looking at his Minister's statement regarding his plans to respond to the social agenda report, has to do with the groups that he talked about meeting with in order to craft his recommendations. I would agree that the Minister should meet broadly to make sure he has a lot of public input when he is putting together his response. I think key players would include First Nations. I know First Nations people are very interested in assuming a much bigger role through self-government in the health and social services area.
I am trying to understand how dealing with the First Nations is tied to the Intergovernmental Forum. To my understanding, the Intergovernmental Forum has a mandate that deals only with resource ownership and resource revenue sharing among Northerners. I was not aware that its mandate was broader than that and that it was dealing with devolution in other areas. If it is, then I think that is something we have not been hearing an awful lot about and the public may not be aware of. I think we need to do a better job of making sure that people are aware of that as well.
With that, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really think we are going to have to have a detailed discussion in the fall when we see what the government's response is. These are very good recommendations, but they are at a very high level. Until we see what they are going to turn into on the ground, they are nothing more than theory. I am hoping that we are going to see some action, or plans for action, this fall that is meaningful. Thank you.