Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I want to express my grave concerns about the actions of the Health Minister with her decision to release information to the public in the context of public consultation about the changes to supplementary health benefits.
Mr. Speaker, many of my constituents say it looks like it’s already a done deal. I have reviewed the material on the Health and Social Services website,
and I’ve had feedback from my constituents. If anyone has read the documents, you would know there seems to be many assumptions and leading information that relates to the direction of the supplementary health benefits and which way it will be going. Some of the pretty obvious statements are the department will implement an income test program; that the implementation will happen September 2010; that many Northerners will be able to access their supplementary health benefits from third-party providers. Mr. Speaker, not to mention the sad fact that Regular Members only had information on what would be happening just the day before this release started.
As we all know, the Minister will hold town meetings and talk to regional centres throughout the NWT in March and April with her new vision of the rollout of the program, which is coming in September. But, Mr. Speaker, is this consultation just for consultation sake? Is this a process just to shoehorn our seniors into a direction that the department has already made clear that they’re going in? Why do we need an implementation date as opposed to just a consultation framework process, and then let that process drive the implementation date? Does the Minister believe that the appearance of this consultation will drive true feedback or just simply apathy from its public?
I urge the Minister to be open to new ideas through this process. I also encourage the Minister not to hack away at the few benefits that we provide our northern seniors. I insist to the Minister to find a way to stop driving up the cost of living here in the Northwest Territories.
Mr. Speaker, I had one constituent tell me the other day, it’s starting to look like our Health Minister is taking a page out of the Alberta health model, the third way. Mr. Speaker, in closing I’m going to quote a line from Hamlet. It says something is rotten in Denmark. Well, Mr. Speaker, I certainly think something is wrong and certainly rotten with our supplementary health consultation process and it’s only just begun. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.