Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a question relative to the numbers on page 8-21. From 2009-10 revised estimates we’ve got $185 million give or take and in 2010-11 we go to about $180 million. So that’s a fairly large reduction. If I look on the next page it looks as though the reductions are basically to authorities for the provision of their various services and I just wondered what kind of an impact these reductions are going to have on the ability of the authorities to provide their services and, secondly, is this reduction related to the lack of renewal of THAF funding, which isn’t shown in the budget. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member is right; this section has a sunset of THAF of $3.1 million, but it also has investments of $10.82 million that goes to various areas that constitutes the biggest amount of the plus and minus of that item. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Lee. Committee, page 8-21, activity summary, health services programs, operations expenditure summary, $179.791 million. Agreed?

Mr. Krutko, is that page 8-21?

Yes.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In regard to services, you talk about different services, some out-of-territory services and also in-territorial. What about those people that come from the South, use our medical services and then leave back to southern Canada. How is that calculated in regard to expenditures? I mean, it’s an unforeseen cost, but there is a lot of transition and migration from workers at the mines, oil and gas, whatever, but there is a cost associated with those people. So in expenditures, is that part of these expenditures that you’ve put forward, or is there an allocation of a certain amount of money that’s allocated for that type of expense where we do have a lot of transient people coming and going at any one time? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member is right; we do get people dropping in our health centres and hospitals. Anyone who doesn’t have an NWT health card, they would be billed to their host provinces and territories and the billings are determined by national agreements that we

talked about earlier. There’s a very set number of dollars that we are allowed to bill each other. So the money is recouped. Thank you.

Just on that, I know we have had some challenges in collecting from different organizations, territories, in regard to Nunavut, we’ve had challenges collecting from the federal government. So how successful are we in collecting from those jurisdictions when we submit an invoice in regard to those individuals who come here from other jurisdictions? Have we been paid or are there any outstanding amounts that are out there that we should know of? Thank you.

As the deputy minister stated, we have a portability provision. All the provinces and territories know that our people travel to each other’s jurisdictions and they have a pretty clear guideline on paying for that. So as long as we bill other jurisdictions, those are paid. Now, obviously we want to make sure we bill for every service we render to anybody who is not from here. Every health centre has that function incorporated into their finance office. That is a course of business. In Inuvik the hospital does that, Stanton does that, and any of the clinics, and the headquarters, through the DM’s office, monitors reciprocal billing and collection. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Lee. Anything further, Mr. Krutko?

That’s okay. Thanks.

Thank you, committee. We’re on page 8-21, activity summary, health services programs, operations expenditure summary, $179.791 million. Agreed?

Page 8-22, activity summary, health services programs, grants and contributions, grants, $40 million; contributions, $134.771 million. Excuse me, committee. Grants, $40,000; contributions, $134.771 million; total grants and contributions, $134.811 million. Committee agreed?

Thank you. Moving on. Page 8-25, activity summary. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I mentioned in my general comments this area was an extremely highly volatile issue about a year ago and I wanted to know in terms of proposed... Okay, I’ll start again. The changes are proposed to be put in place on September 1, 2010, and the Minister has advised, I think, that there is some work going on at this point. I wondered if I could get a bit more information in detail about just exactly what is happening at the moment. There are no consultations certainly that the public can take part in at this point, so I would like some information as

to what work is going on, when consultation with the public will start, et cetera, et cetera. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On this issue, I, as Minister, committed to the Standing Committee on Social Programs to seek input from the public, obviously. I have just had a substantive update on that. I am going to be seeking to go to Cabinet for Cabinet input. I will also be seeking to go to the Standing Committee on Social Programs as soon as we can organize that. We are ready to do that now and also we need to have consult with the public working group on that. So we are in the process of communicating that to the standing committee, so we can give the committee members an update and seek their input on where we are because there has been some substantive work on that and will be interested in sharing that with the Member. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for that information. I look forward to our briefing. I guess I just would like a bit of confirmation in terms of timing. I get the impression...(inaudible)...