Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to advise the Member that I do agree with him in his Member’s statement.
Obviously, this is a big issue for us. They’re having progressive actions taken. As I indicated earlier in the session in answering Mr. Abernethy’s question on the same topic, the Premier has raised this issue repeatedly with the Prime Minister as well as the Minister of DIAND.
We, at the Department of Health, have communicated with the Minister of DIAND, asking for renegotiations. And we were actively negotiating right up to March 31, when we signed the most recent agreement. I’ve also indicated that I’m in the process of trying to get a direct meeting with Minister Clement so we could look at ways to renegotiate this agreement.
Remember, this is not just a situation of where the NWT is paying the bills — where we send the bill to the federal government, and they’re not paying that. That’s not the case at all, Mr. Speaker.
We have an agreement in place, which has a 2 per cent gap. The cost is rising at 5 per cent. We have about a 3 per cent gap we need to address. I and the whole Cabinet and Premier are looking at all possible options to push this file forward as quickly as possible and as strongly as possible.