Page 7, Financial Management Board Secretariat, client services, not previously authorized, $1.239 million. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On that, I understand these expenditures are for the increasing dental premiums and medical travel assistance. Is that right? I'd like to get some information on what the explanation is for these increases. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, what we've done in this area under client services now, we've pulled all the resources or people, as well as the program, into one area. We've come up with a shortfall in the area of medical travel assistance of just over a million dollars, $1.096 million, as well as dental premiums of $143,000. Other departments had within their ability to fund some of the over-expenditures. If you broke this out between all departments, they had some flexibility there, but within Financial Management Board, after pulling these in we have little room for this type of flexibility. That's why we've come forward with a request for this funding. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Ms. Lee.

Thank you. So I'm understanding that this is the government spending on government employees as a government employer, not as the government as the health service provider under the Department of Health budget. Is that right?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, Ms. Lee is correct. It is for our employees. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Ms. Lee.

Thank you. There are two issues with that. I guess one larger issue of health care delivery in general in that I know that the Minister of Health and Social Services had introduced aspects to the policy that was to work to reduce costs or at least better coordinate medical travel. I think he implemented a plan that sort of streamlined at least the authorizing process for medical travel, I think in the hopes of having better control over the medical travel in general. I understand that this is the employer's portion of it. So I'd like to know if the Minister of Finance or Minister of Health could indicate whether that system, in general, is working and that that is not contributing to the increase we are seeing here.

The second issue, the Minister of Finance indicated that this is the kind of cost that used to be absorbed by each human resource section of each department and now that all the human resources sections have been amalgamated that it's been all added up into a bigger pot and making it impossible or not able anymore for the departments to find from within. But accepting that as the case, it still raises the question about the fact that in the past years, there was that sort of money floating around where the government could absorb these costs on their own budget. That raises questions about how much control we really have over this budget if different departments can come up with pockets of money that could add up to this amount of money, given that we're to understand that all these used to be absorbed from within.

Let me just restate those two questions. One is, whether anything that the Minister of Health has implemented has helped in any way to reduce medical travel costs or dental, or what portion of this is due to rising costs of the travel itself. The second thing is about what does he have to say about the capacity within the government to observe this amount of money in previous years? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our employees fall under the same work that's happening with medical travel and the work that's being done by the Department of Health and Social Services. So employees that have to go through and receive or, I guess...What would be the term? Referral. Yes. Referral from a doctor down to Stanton or a specialist, that would still follow through the process of Health and Social Services that's applied. I guess we can say that although it's underway, we think that is helping the situation a bit. What we find the costs are increasing around is areas of the airline service itself, the fees there; accommodation costs; as well as more referrals as we have more employees that need assistance through the medical system. That is the reason for the higher cost in this area. It will fluctuate depending on the health of our employees. That is something more difficult to predict. We can lay out the trends and use an estimate, as has been in the past, and come fairly close. But there are, from time-to-time, years where we will encounter a larger surge of employees requiring the needs of the medical profession. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Ms. Lee.

Thank you. I wonder if the Minister could tell us how much of this increase...We're looking at $1.2 million more than what was budgeted in 2005-2006 budget. The Minister is indicating that some of that has to do with more than expected use. I guess those things could happen, but I'd like to know, I think the million shortfall is quite large and if he could say anything about why the budget was so underestimated. Does the new budget reflect that increase?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I did give out some of the reasons for why we feel there's an increased cost. One, departments were able to cover some of the shortfall from their own budgets. But for more of the detail, I'll have Mr. Voytilla provide that level of information.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Voytilla.

Thank you, Mr. Voytilla. Ms. Lee.

Thank you on that. That's fair enough. I'd be interested in looking at what the department finds out in that regard and see what happened there and what we find out. I guess this is an FMBS issue and not a Health and Social Services issue and I would like to ask the Minister to report to us through AOC or something. It would be interesting to know what happened there. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We will do that. Once we have this work done, we will be glad to meet with Members and provide the information and some plans of how we might be able to deal with some of these costs. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Next I have Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think Mr. Voytilla started to answer the questions that I had on his last answer. He pointed out the $2.8 million where the rising costs went to $3.9 million. I'm just trying to get a sense of...Well, it's a significant increase and I guess I wonder, does our 2006-2007 budget address some of these shortfalls? I mean, in essence are we under funding this sort of policy and premium at this time and will we be challenged with a new supp before us sometime in the new budget year? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.