I’d like to thank the Minister for a lesson on information that I already know. I’d like to also state that we’re not in other parts of the country. We’re in the NWT and we have a policy which currently works in most cases. I agree totally that we need to cover the people who are not currently covered, but what we are doing is solving one problem and creating another. I need to discuss with the Minister some of the examples that my constituents have given to me of how they are going to be in financial hardship based on the information that we currently have. I don’t gather that it’s changing very much.

I’d like to quote again from a document which the department had on their website. It was entitled “A Conversation with Northerners” and on page 15 of that document, 8(a) states that all families should have fair and equal access. From that statement I’d like to suggest that the department and the Minister carefully omitted to say all aboriginal families will have fair and equal access. This is a very divisive policy and it’s been stated by some of my colleagues earlier.

I’d like to ask the Minister how having these changes only apply to non-aboriginal peoples will make this new program fair and provide equal access.