My question today is to the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, and it is related to my Member’s statement yesterday concerning federal responsibility for Indian and Inuit health care costs.
The federal government has limited growth on their portion of the Indian and Inuit health care at around 2 per cent. Real growth in health care is around 7 per cent or more. As a result, the GNWT is falling further behind. The feds owe our health system more money to support our health care system — around $95 million to date.
So my questions are: what is Health and Social Services doing to collect these outstanding dollars? What is the status of any negotiations that are going on between the department and the federal government? How long can we wait, or expect, or.... How long is it going to take before we develop some sort of funding model to flow a larger portion of funds to us so that we’re not relying on the 2 per cent?