Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know that question has come up: has the department looked at what impact this will have in

terms of people wanting to leave. I have two direct answers to that. One is that we have no reason to believe that anything we are doing here would encourage anybody to leave the North because our program is as good, if not better, than what’s available anywhere else. So our supp health benefits are still a robust one and the fact is all across the country, except for Nunavut, all extended health benefits are income tested. Not only are they income tested, some of them are means tested, which means they look at more than just the income. In some places it’s asset tested, which we are not proposing to do at all. In Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and other jurisdictions, their income threshold is less than $25,000 gross. We’re talking about a program that you still have access to even if you make $200,000 a year. So we have no reason to believe that anybody would leave.

Now, why can’t you come up with a dollar? That’s the same question as if somebody could tell me if I’m going to get sick tomorrow. I do not know what my health care cost is going to be to my government because we cannot project people’s health expenses. To ask that, the Member has to know that’s an impossible thing to answer.