Today I wanted to talk about the difficulty northern families have accessing services for their children who are diagnosed with autism. I’ve spoken to a number of them, and I’m really starting to understand their struggle. I can’t really talk about this today because I’m more than just struggling in the sense of understanding their issues. I’m struggling to get answers from the Minister of Health and Social Services. That’s what I want to talk about today.

A number of times I’ve written the Minister, and I find that things are really slow. I write a letter to find out about NHIB money and how much the GNWT is owed, especially in this crisis of trying to find money to pay our bills so we don’t have to lay off staff. It takes seven weeks before I get a response acknowledging that it’s still slow. It takes two extra weeks on top of that to finally get a response. That’s nine weeks to get an answer when we’re in a difficult position — when Members want to be proactive to find ways to help the government solve some of these financial crunches.

Speaking of that autism issue, I wrote the Minister over three weeks ago with just some simple questions, because I have parents struggling with this issue. I’m still waiting for those answers.

In March I’d written the Minister regarding multiple sclerosis coverage. I had a family come to me and say: We’re struggling; we have a potential drug that has a positive effect. Mr. Speaker, it took over three weeks to find out a yes-or-no answer for this question, which is: was this drug one we cover? By the way, three weeks later I found out it was. But a walk down that back corridor could have certainly helped this family. They were concerned why it would take over three weeks to get an answer.

At the end of April I wrote a letter — a supportive letter — because there is a family who is struggling with crack addiction. Although the answer didn’t come out the way I wanted it to — with ministerial support — it did take over a month to at least acknowledge my letter.

Mr.

Speaker, how are we to get back to our

constituents in a timely way? This is not just

happening to me. I’ve heard at least one other MLA speak to this as well. A staff member has told me that when they try to communicate and get information for MLAs to move forward on issues, this continues to be a problem. If it was a photo-op or it was a cutting of cake, I bet that Minister would be running down the hall to do this. The fact is that I need answers to do my job.

I will have questions for the Premier today regarding what he has expectations of as reasonable response times for Members to do their jobs.