Mr. Speaker, I am not sure where the Minister is getting that information. That is not the same information that was provided to Regular Members. Perhaps she is doing some creative subtraction when she is trying to arrive at that number. Where exactly is she getting those numbers that she is providing the House with? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I answered the question the Member asked, which is what is the projected deficit for Stanton and the system-wide deficit at the end of 2010-11. I don’t know what information he has. Maybe he is thinking about accumulated deficit.

Obviously, this is a number that we are projecting. Mr. Speaker, this is a serious matter that I am willing to discuss and exchange information with the Member on. I don’t think anybody is doing any creative math here. All the facts are out. We presented to the Members on the other side all the information we have. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, much of the deficit at Stanton and across the various health authorities relates back to poor billing practices and an inability for the government to collect on accounts receivable. I’d like to ask the Minister if she could provide the House with current numbers on accounts receivable or for Stanton Territorial Health Authority and the system in its entirety. Thank you.

The Member is right; the accounts receivable is one of the factors, but it’s not the biggest or the largest cost driver. I’m pleased to advise the House that it’s this government and this Minister that has signed an agreement. We have now a written agreement with the Nunavut government. We negotiated for two years and we signed in February of 2010. Most of the receivables we have with Nunavut are current. We have an outstanding amount with respect to Nunavut residents we have in extended care, because there were no real written agreements for the last 10 years. So we have finalized that, we have moved forward.

There are a number of steps. The Member is right when he said in his Member’s statement that unless we change the system, we will have a sustainability problem. That’s what I’ve been saying for the last year. We’re working on system change for sustainability. The deficit is not just about dollars, it’s about how we run our system and we need to make sure... And I’m not playing on the heartstrings of anybody; I think that nobody here has any tolerance for reducing services, nor do the people out there. So it is really important that we make system changes so that our resources are used efficiently and that our resources are allocated appropriately and all of the management in the department, all of the authorities, all of the chairs and CEOs are very engaged in seeing how we move forward on that. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Your final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for that. I guess I haven’t been here as long as I have been, seven years. I’m very sceptical when it comes to any Minister of Health and Social Services standing up in this House saying that anything is going to happen. I’ve heard it from former Ministers, I’ve heard it from this Minister. The bottom line, Mr. Speaker, is nothing has happened and I know the Minister has embarked on this Foundation for Change and I wish her well in that and I hope that does answer some questions, but I believe wholeheartedly that it’s a system-wide fix that we need here.

I’d like to ask the Minister if the department and the Government of the Northwest Territories are intent on looking at how we deliver health care in the Northwest Territories, and the current makeup of our authority system, and whether or not, given the impact on cost and the escalation on cost, are we looking at a model that is going to be more conducive to ensuring that what dollars we have to spend on health are going to get spent efficiently and effectively. Thank you.

The Member is exactly right in what he’s saying and I want to let the Member know that, in fact, a lot is being done. It’s not correct to say that nothing’s being done. We are looking at the governance model and we will have a proposal on that in the spring. We are reviewing the business process design, because we want to right size the budget for the authorities. We’re reviewing the Medical Travel Program, which is one of the biggest cost drivers in terms of deficit, with increasing demands all the time. So we don’t want to reduce service, but we want to see how we can do that better.

Physicians are involved in the physician service review, which is our largest cost driver. So there are lots of reviews being done with a view of how do we change the system in a smart way, in a seamless

way and a productive way, so that we don’t shock the system, but that we make long-term changes. So the Foundation for Change, the three pillars there are sustainability, wellness and access, because we need to work on all three together. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said in my Member’s statement today, I want to talk about viability of a pellet mill for the Northwest Territories, and my questions will be directed to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.

Mr. Speaker, a certain amount of the viability of a pellet mill would depend on the sustainable availability of product to harvest to bring to make pellets with. I would like to ask the Minister if he could update this House on what is being done within his department to determine that there are sufficient inventories to make a project such as this viable within our borders. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have been doing a number of things. As we look at the biomass sector, we have a fledgling market being built and we are looking at value-added down the road. We’ve proceeded with and continue to do inventories in the South Slave and the Deh Cho. Up the Valley we’ve been looking at areas such as fast-growing willows in terms of potential supply for biomass. We’ve brought in consultants to look at, in fact, the viability of setting up our own industry to create the pellets. As well, we have this concept of a wood marshalling yard that we’re looking at for certain parts of the Territory where we may be able to form a hub with access to supply and a market nearby where we could build up, in fact, a sufficient quantity to make a pellet industry viable. Thank you.

Being from Hay River where we have had a functioning, operating sawmill for many, many years, one of the problems we know that was often encountered, an obstacle that made it difficult to keep enough product coming in and harvested to keep that sawmill going was the whole issue of access because of unresolved land use plans, unresolved land claims, that a lot of this material would need to be harvested is in areas where claims are not settled and there was often opposition raised to harvesting the product. What has the Minister done or researched to assure

himself that access issues would not continue to be an obstacle or preclude such a thing from happening in the Territories? Thank you.

The Member points out a key challenge and that is the issue of access to a sustainable supply. We’ve been working at concepts that would allow partnerships with aboriginal governments, with the landholders of the area, possibly with the concept of the wood marshalling yard, for example, but that’s one of the challenges. The other one is you want to make sure you’re located close to the supply. Some of the best timber that we do have and best forests for a viable pellet industry, for example, would be in the Deh Cho. There is a market right here in Yellowknife, and in the South Slave it is very significant. As well, there are forest products here in the Providence area, the Hay River South Slave area. We have a number of challenges, but most of the boreal forest tends to be in unsettled claims areas, so it is a factor that has to be resolved. Thank you.

I am glad to hear that the government is looking for ways to create partnerships and secure buy-in from different governments from different areas of the South Slave.

Mr. Speaker, is the government looking for a proponent so that such an operation would be honed and managed and operated by a private enterprise, or is the government thinking about getting into the pellet manufacturing business themselves? Thank you.

The government is not contemplating now or I don’t anticipate in the future getting into the pellet manufacturing business, but what we would see doing is what we have done and continue to do through ITI and economic development support programs we have is to hopefully get a proponent that would be able to partner up with an aboriginal government that has access to supply and be able to have a business venture that would be viable and stand-alone when it comes to looking at the pellet industry. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister kind of already went into the last part of my question. That would be the collaboration, cooperation with ITI so that when the information is available about the availability of the biomass of the product of the harvest and the sustainability of that, which would be under the Minister of ENR’s purview, then to work with ITI to look at the viability from the economic side, the size of the market, what we’d have to sell the product for in order to make it competitive with importing it from other jurisdictions and all those sorts of things. Perhaps the Minister could tell me how closely, what kind of

communications, what kind of work has been done with ITI to identify where there would be sufficient resources. This is a very capital-intensive operation to get this going and, obviously, nobody in the private sector is going to have the resources to take a risk on something that will not be supported and ongoing for quite a number of years.

The Minister of ITI is also the chair of the Ministerial Energy Coordinating Committee which provides oversight to this area as well as all the other energy initiatives that we have underway. As well, we have spent a lot of time trying to build a market with our investments in biomass with the schools, the jails, the health centres that are all going onto biomass. The encouragement with communities to do energy plans as well as individuals to switch to pellet stoves. Those combined factors and the Minister of ITI wearing two hats. I as well, as the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, sit on that Energy Coordinating Committee. We’re having ongoing discussions as we look at the aspect of building a supply so we can have that value-added in the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Part of it is related to the needs survey. We would try to allocate funding according to the most need. I can assure the Member that the Housing Corporation is doing, and will continue to do, whatever it can to ensure that seniors across the Northwest Territories are well cared for.

Will the Minister commit to discussing the usage of Our Great Elders Facility in Fort Resolution with the Department of Health and

Social Services to accommodate both the Home Care Program and for potential seniors tenants?

It was an interesting meeting we had in Fort Resolution, a very good meeting we had with the seniors in Our Great Elders Facility. They did raise the concern about the usage of that facility. I had a preliminary discussion with the Minister of Health and Social Services upon my return. The Housing Corporation do own the infrastructure and there is some concern in the community that this infrastructure is not being used as well as it should be. I’ve had some discussions to talk to the appropriate parties about how we can best make use of the whole facility. If that includes the four seniors units that are in there, then we’d be more than willing to have that discussion and possibly fill the four units.