Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, will be supporting the motion that’s before us. I agree wholeheartedly with my colleague Mr. Abernethy and what he had to say, and I won’t go over everything. I did want to start off by saying that over the years — and it goes back probably about 11 or 12 years now — the government of the Northwest Territories has spent millions and millions of dollars in the area of Telehealth. It’s a substantial investment the government has in this area. In my mind, we have to protect that investment. Just leaving it to its own devices without the champion, as Mr. Abernethy said, is a step backwards.
I think if we’re looking at the area of health care costs and rising costs in that area of our operation, it only makes sense that you would look to Telehealth as a way and means to cut back on costs. Why we would target...? You know, I never understood why we were targeting the position in Inuvik and the one at Stanton in the first place. I’m glad to hear the department has reconsidered the coordinator position in Inuvik. They should have, and I’m glad they’ve done that. But the one at Stanton is definitely necessary, and it was alluded to earlier. Eighty per cent of the work in Telehealth in the Northwest Territories goes through that hospital, and this position is much needed. When we’re trying to save money it makes no sense to be cutting an area where potentially — and it has a huge potential, Mr.
Chairman, to save this
government tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical travel.... Again, I just don’t understand the rationale that the government uses — or the department uses, for that matter.