Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just want to follow up on my colleague’s questions. It’s interesting, I guess. I find it hard to believe that we’d be here today facing this $17 million item in a supp, $11.5 million of it for Stanton alone, when it was over two years ago that alarm bells were first rung over the deficits that were accruing at Stanton Territorial Hospital. That was two years ago. It’s nice to see the government finally waking up and wanting to do something about it. But this is not a problem that just happened overnight. It’s a problem that’s been going on for awhile.
As for the previous public administrator I’m not sure if they were asleep at the switch or what was happening. We haven’t addressed the unfunded
positions at that hospital. To be honest with you, I just don’t see a palatable game plan going forward. I know the Minister has hired somebody from Calgary who’s familiar with the hospital. They’re not here on the ground. They’re not out there every day trying to figure out what’s going on at that hospital. To my knowledge they still live in Calgary. It’s only a three-month time frame, so I’m wondering how you can fix what amounts to eight years of neglect in three months. I don’t know exactly how that is going to work.
The Premier talked about it. The Minister of Finance talked about it. We went to a zero-based review, and you know what? As soon as the zero-based review is done, that hospital doesn’t pay their payroll for six and a half months. Maybe it’s ironic with the timing — I’m not quite sure how that works — but they’re into FMBS for $26 million. I’d like to ask the Finance Minister if we could get a breakdown of that $11.5 million and what it went to pay. Is it all for salaries? There’s been some discussion that maybe part of that $26 million that the hospital is into FMBS for is part of that $11 million. I’m not sure, but can somebody please try to help me out with that? I’d like a breakdown of the $11.5 million.