Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Certainly, we need to gather the latest and updated information. It’s been five years since we’ve increased our minimum wage. That information may not be accurate today. That information we need to gather from, whether it’s the employer sector, the change that we have in the restaurants and so forth…. Certainly that information is needed to move forward on this. We need as much information to deal with this issue as possible.

I won’t belabour this, but I do need to say to the Minister that I don’t think there’s much to be gathered. We haven’t raised the minimum wage, so I’m not too sure what information he feels needs to be gathered. Any expense we will incur by raising the minimum wage, I suspect we’re going to save in income subsidy and savings in various programs that we have.

I guess I’ll ask the Minister again: is there any possibility that even if we don’t do a comprehensive analysis or evaluation, we can get something to consider in the business plans in November?

Mr. Speaker, as I stated, we need to consult with the small businesses in the North. I do believe that during the last round of increases there was an outcry from the small businesses. We need to consult with them as well. We can’t just say we’re going to increase wages at this time.

That type of information will be crucial to us to proceed, if we need to proceed forward, to increase the minimum wage. That is the information we need to tackle and consult with the small businesses on. We need that information from the Member as well.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Premier in terms of the initiatives he announced earlier in the life of this Assembly. The initiative I’d like to talk about is a small community committee that he initiated. There are certain challenges these small communities that we represent have to deal with.

I’d like to ask the Premier, in terms of the status of this specific committee, when we could see some light of day in getting this committee off the ground.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Hon. Premier, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The small communities committee the Member is

speaking about…. We did have correspondence with the Standing Committee on Priorities and Planning, and we’re awaiting their response to the proposal that was put in front of them.

The policy of the small communities committee in terms of its membership as initiated by Cabinet…. I’ll ask the Premier if he has the authority to say that this committee needs to be implemented. Does the Priorities and Planning committee need to initiate it to get it going?

The process we’re involved with is when the joint committee works with Priorities and Planning and awaits their response. If it was an internal committee of Cabinet, we could undertake our own work. Between now and then I’m prepared to sit down with the Members, unofficially, to discuss concerns that are out there for Members. For the actual process of coming up with membership on the committee, we’re awaiting, again, the response of Priorities and Planning.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I still have a few more questions for the Minister of Health regarding our experiences or relationship with Capital Health and our contract.

A lot of people in this House know, I’m sure, that Capital Health is an approximately $13 billion sort of conglomerate of hospitals and whatnot; that’s their budget area. To put that into perspective, the GNWT’s budget is only 10 per cent of that. It’s a sense of magnitude I’m drawing on that.

In negotiating our contract with Capital Health to provide services to Northerners who need services, I’d like to know if the Minister is aware of how this government defines service levels that need to be provided to Northerners when they are sent south for treatment in southern institutions.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Mr. Speaker, we have a contract with the Capital Health Authority. They guarantee that NWT residents will receive the same level of medical care that Alberta residents will receive.

Is that the actual statement in the contract, or does the contract actually take the time to identify what is considered reasonable wait times for Northern residents who’ve contracted

specifically with Capital Health? Is that exactly how it works?

My understanding is that we get the same service that Alberta residents receive. If the Member would like to have a briefing on what kinds of contracts we have — what kind of service agreements we have with Alberta Health or any other organizations or governments that this government has contracts with — I’ll be happy to provide the Members on the other side with a briefing or any background information.

I’m sort of perplexed. It sounds like we’re not getting any additional services than anyone else who would walk in off the street, yet we have a very specific contract with Capital Health. I find it an odd situation that this government wouldn’t try to negotiate some type of preferred experience, preferred customer. I’m certainly well aware that the GNWT makes every effort to make sure we pay our bills in a timely way — to get recognition for that — so Capital Health doesn’t need to sit and wait for payment.

Why do we contract specifically with Capital Health? Why don’t we consider going somewhere else where we’d get recognition for our Northerners and make sure our tax dollars are actually recognizing their importance?

Notwithstanding this particular situation, most of the feedback we do receive is that we get very good service from Capital Health. Capital Health Authority and the services that the Government of Alberta provide are, I believe, among the best. I just don’t know where else we would go to get the services that our residents receive.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, I’ll help the Minister: there’s Grande Prairie; there’s Calgary; there’s Saskatoon. There are other places if the Minister is looking for suggestions to consider.

What is the Minister doing to make sure we have recognizable service levels defined in our contract with Capital Health? If she chooses to do nothing, why isn’t she doing something on this issue?

As I stated already, I’d be happy to meet with the Member or the Standing Committee on Social Programs to go over the contract we have and to have further discussion on it.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services if she is aware of a rating system that rates all hospitals in Canada. If she is, could she tell us where the U of A sits on that rating? I think they sit at the top.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have that information. I’ll be happy to get that information to the Member. My understanding is that U of A and the Government of Alberta are investing a huge amount of money to make the U of A and the University hospital a centre of excellence and research in the country.