Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Minister's commitment to work on best efforts to make this a reality. Again, it's a little bit of comfort for the people in Deline. It's just how long you've been working at this issue to reopen the seniors' facility. So I hope that there's commitment strong enough from all departments to get this facility open, and that the departments have some flexibility in their opinions, what's the best use, and how much this facility is going to cost to upgrade, and to have it open for the people there. So I'll just leave it at that. I'm going to take the Minister's word on that, that it's going to come about there. I hope before we finish, I finish my term here. I'm going to cross my fingers on this, Madam Chair.

The other one, Madam Chair, is I want to ask the Minister in terms of the policy by his department in terms of programs and services in terms of some of the confusion, I guess, for some of the elders who need to be escorted out of the communities for medical reasons. Sometimes, as Mr. Menicoche has indicated, they have to travel alone or they're lead to believe that they have to travel alone, or they're okay to travel by themselves just because they indicate by nodding of their head or saying yes or no in English that the nurses or some of the medical staff indicate that they could understand English quite well, so for them to travel on their own. I want to ask the Minister, is there a standard policy for elders in small communities, or even in larger centres, that they have to have an escort no matter what. If they're 60 years or older, or they're 63, that they have to have someone travelling with them for medication assistance, for accommodations, for making sure that they have someone at the airport to pick them up and take them to the home that they provide for them. So is there a policy in the medical travel for helping these elders travel to and from the communities on medical leave? Thank you.

Thank you. Medical travel is a topic that's covered in a page that's coming up; however, I'll ask Mr. Miltenberger to answer that question. But just in case Members are going to go on a medical travel tangent, I thought I'd point that out. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, there are policies and guidelines that govern medical travel. It's based on the need and its medical assessment that is done on a case-by-case basis. There are some parameters to that. We don't do what used to be called compassionate travel anymore. We do do travel and escorts based on what is the assessed need of the particular patient at a particular time, and that is done by the health professionals that are there and hopefully the other people in the community that are aware of the circumstance, either the CHR or other staff that is going to have, possibly, more knowledge of the community. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for allowing that question. I apologize. I want to ask in terms of program delivery support, the services at the Stanton hospital, again I'm going to a line of judgment if this is the best spot to ask about the Aboriginal Wellness Program in Stanton hospital in terms of support for that by this department to enhance and increase and strengthen the Aboriginal Wellness Program in Stanton, because that's part of the program delivery support for medical services. It was indicated one time that 65 percent of clients at Stanton who are First Nations or aboriginal go through the program, so I wanted to ask the Minister what type of support he's going to lend to this wellness program and the Language Services Program. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That's the next activity, but if it's the wish of the chair, I can engage in that discussion.

Please go ahead, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we are going to be putting in $184,000 into getting an Aboriginal Wellness Program up and running at Stanton, and that's based a lot on what was reviewed and visited when we went to Whitehorse. So we are committed to this. It was initially $234,000, but as part of our most recent reduction exercise, there was some small reductions done in different areas and this one of them since the program we hadn't started yet. But we are committed to getting this program up and running. We talked about it over the last number of sessions, and that is the commitment. Thank you.

Agreed. Thank you. Page 6-25, activity summary, program delivery support, grants and contributions, contributions, total contributions, $13.923 million. Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Madam Chair. Just more so of a clarification to the Minister. Being from a small, isolated community, televideo is becoming a communication tool for providing health services in the small communities. So it's been highlighted here: telehealth coordinators, selected new locations. I'm just wondering which locations they are. Also, if small, isolated communities are excluded, are there plans in place to invest in these communities, whether it be purchasing computers or necessary equipment to have these in operation in the small communities? I'm sure there's plans in place to cover most of the communities, but I'm just wondering which communities are identified now, and the plans in place to cover the remaining communities. Mahsi, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, over time the intent is to bring telehealth facilities capacity to all the communities. We've been working slowly at that over the last number of years. In some cases, due to budget restraint, we've only been able to do it to the level of the video capacity, as opposed to the full telehealth. But once again, Madam Chair, I'll let the deputy speak to the detail, and where we are and what's being proposed.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Murray.

Thank you, Mr. Murray. Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Madam Chair. I see the 500K has been allocated to 2006-2007. Last year I guess it was 470,000. I'm just wondering, how did that work out? Like, $470,000, did that cover the whole year, or did the department require additional funding to establish these kinds of systems in the communities? Also, in the smaller communities, Wekweeti, for example, it's on a dial-up. But my understanding is there's a broadband connectivity that's going to be taking place in the 33 communities, or most of the communities anyways. Is the department working with the contractor, I'm not sure who they are, but I think it's SSI Micro or some contractor out there, connecting the broadband system into the communities? Is the department working with them as a part of their investment into the communities to provide this telehealth into the communities? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the money we have in the budget, or the money we had last year, the $470,000, was what we had available for this particular initiative. If we were able to allocate more we would, but it's been always based on available resources. We are, as a government and as a department, making the contractors aware of our needs as they look at the increased broadband capacity in the communities and Internet capacity to the communities and that we have, if we don't have it now, we're planning down the road to come in and require the capacity to be able to install telehealth so that as they do their planning they're aware of those requirements or potential requirements. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Page 6-25, activity summary, program delivery support, grants and contributions, contributions, total contributions...Ms. Lee. Oh. Total contributions. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you. Madam Chair, the telehealth coordinators...Could the Minister provide in terms of where these new coordinators or these new locations are going to be selected? I think it's probably the way to go in terms of the future in terms of the health care, because I've seen it work and it seems to be fairly effective. If it's implemented and the locations are well supported, it will cut down a lot of the trips into the communities in terms if we had telehealth services in some of the isolated communities. Thank you, Madam Chair.