One of the reasons why we want to make this change is to bring in those people who are excluded. Yes, the option is there to bring them in without making any changes to anything else. Then we have to put in extra money. We believe it will cost two to three million dollars to bring them back in. But the thing is, as the Member for Hay River South mentioned already, the health care budget has been going up at about 8 to 10 percent every year even if we change nothing. The cost of delivering, the cost of human resources, the cost of health care is going up by 8 percent. Our budget has doubled but our population has remained the same; actually, really, almost no growth in the last 10 years NWT-wide. I mean, Yellowknife has seen growth, but NWT-wide. So, Mr. Speaker, it is a challenge for us to add new people and expand services without having to look at how do we realign the program.
As I have said already, this is a program where people can get service elsewhere if they buy the insurance. We need to consider that and we need to continue to work on that. Thank you.