Thank you. I, too, would like to speak to the proposed and ill-conceived changes to the Supplementary Health Benefits Program here in the Northwest Territories.

Probably in my 13 years as MLA this is the most public feedback I’ve received on something the government proposed to do. I do appreciate the Minister’s statement today, that in fact the government is willing to put this on hold -- the implementation -- and look at revising these changes so that they will be more thought out and will close those gaps as the Health Minister referred to them.

As my colleague Ms. Bisaro said, the problems with what the government proposed is wrong on so many levels and really dangerous on so many levels that it’s hard to know where to start in a two and a half minute statement. As mentioned by Ms. Bisaro, thresholds were not thought out. They are far too low for people living in the North. This really affects quite a small number of people and I don’t know if the government took into account what the losses and cost to our Territory would be in relation to what it costs for the supplementary health benefits for our seniors. I don’t think they thought that through. That’s the kind of information that we did not have access to. We had many questions. We did not get many answers. I do appreciate the work of the seniors who put so much thought into proposing good questions, which were then sent on to the department and we’ve been trying to get to the bottom of those questions.

We talk about attracting people to the Northwest Territories and all the things that we would do and all the incentives we would offer to get people to move here. Yet, for the relatively little cost that it takes to support our seniors living here in the Northwest Territories, it’s unthinkable that we would drive seniors out of the Northwest Territories when they contribute so much to our economies. They

have worked and contributed to building our communities and our Northwest Territories.

I have very serious concerns about this. I don’t like the timing of the implementation amounts that are going to wait until September 1st , because everyone

knows that we all are going to be gone and summertime is not a good time to get in touch with a lot of people and a lot of stakeholders. I think the government should do more than postpone and defer the implementation of this. I think they should take it right back to the drawing board. I don’t think that this should negatively impact any senior living in the Northwest Territories. The program is flawed. It’s not good enough to say that those who can pay should pay. That is not a good premise for what they’re doing.

Times are very difficult for everyone, including seniors. This is not a time to be stressing them out with these kinds of changes.