Mr. Speaker, we made it always clear that what we are trying to do in Supplementary Health Benefits is to offer an insurance program for those who don’t have it. We are not going to be topping anybody. What we have now is we exclude a whole bunch of people who

have limited supplementary health benefits and then we top up people just because of their age. What we are saying is we will look after the seniors, we will look after the youth, we will look after the working families. Everybody would have equivalent to 80 percent. For certain people under certain income thresholds, we will cover 100 percent. At a certain threshold, you are going to start paying for your supplementary health benefits. Nobody will pay more than 45 percent of their supplementary health benefits, but on average, yes, nobody would get a top-off, unless you’re below the income threshold, and that’s a fair policy. Thank you.

Final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.

In the policy that Cabinet put out they indicate that the territorial Supplemental Health Benefits Program should be designed in a manner that does not cause employers to reduce supplementary health benefits programs to their employees; i.e., insurance. Everything the Minister just said pretty much encourages everybody to dump their insurance. It doesn’t make any sense at all. Even people who are making a lot of money who have insurance, if they have a catastrophic condition, it’s in their best interest not to have insurance from their provider. So right there on that fact they’re going against the policy that they put in place. I’m curious if the Minister can explain to me how they can put a program in place that clearly contradicts the policy that they put in place in the first place. Thank you.

To a certain extent that’s happening under the existing program. That is not new. We have learned that a lot of government employees who could extend their extended health benefits after their retirement for $25 a month have opted out of that because the GNWT covers 100 percent with no questions asked after they turn 60.

Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is there are a lot of people who make less than $50,000 who don’t have insurance coverage that covers basic dental and vision in the first place. So we are looking to cover them. Yes, Mr. Speaker, everybody says extend the coverage, but don’t take it away from anybody even if they could afford it and just expand, expand and do universal. The point is this is not an insured service. We are hard pressed to pay for the insured services, nurses and doctors in our communities. Mr. Speaker, the opt out happens anyway to a certain extent where we are looking at covering those on a low income. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll have questions for the NWT Health Minister regarding supplementary health benefits, and of course, it’s not to the Ontario Health Minister when we talk about Ontario benefits, and certainly not to the Alberta Minister of Health when we hear about how Alberta does stuff.

Mr. Speaker, speaking to the Minister for Health and Social Services in the Northwest Territories, my first question on the supplementary health benefits issue is this: under Section 5, and I won’t go into the details of how far down in the policy, under the Cabinet policy regarding supp health benefits, one of the issues that allows the Minister to deal with a particular policy is it says the Minister may make recommendations to the policy and bring them back to the Executive Council. Mr. Speaker, has this Minister done any effort whatsoever to take back some of the suggestions we have provided on this side of the House back to the Executive Council, and one namely being no co-payment? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Every suggestion, proposal made by the Members and the general public in our two and a half, three years of review has been reviewed, noted, considered, analyzed. Every major public announcement I have made on this policy had gone to the Cabinet, Cabinet has reviewed and approved it, and this is a Cabinet initiative as well as the Minister of Health. Thank you.

I have to say I really just don’t believe the Minister, Mr. Speaker, and I know that it comes as a shock, but, quite honestly, I just don’t believe it. I mean, I’m not allowed to say I’ve felt misled on this particular issue, but I’ll tell you, I really believed, and so did a lot of people believe, that the issue of co-payments would be considered, not where your threshold would start or stop, but I’ll tell you a lot of people in this Territory believe that the co-payment was going to be discussed under the threshold issue, not just where it’s going to start or whether we should have one or not.

Mr. Speaker, was any issue like that ever taken back to the Cabinet table and said, well, wait a minute, this policy, I don’t totally agree with? Has any discussion ever been brought back to Cabinet to revisit this whole policy? Thank you.

Thank you. Absolutely, Mr. Speaker. We’re talking about health care benefits to make all of the programs and the service benefits available under supplementary health and to provide it without co-payment provided to

everybody who lives in the Northwest Territories would make it an insured service. That would make it like any other program under the Canada Health Act and I understand that’s what people want us to do and we have reviewed that and it’s not something we are able to do, because the government has to focus on insured service. Insured services are doctors’ services, nurse services, community health services, our specialist services at the hospital, and no government in Canada could provide full, no questions asked, indiscretionary 100 percent coverage for all supplementary health benefits. No one can do that because we are hard pressed to pay for our physician and nurse services in our communities.

In the North, medical travel is part of the insured services. No government could do that. It’s easy for Members here to say, oh, just include everybody, do it as a universal, and no questions asked. Mr. Speaker, yes, we have considered that. This is not an option that we can afford. So we have to make alternatively a program that’s most accessible to most people in addressing the needs of those who need the government most. This is not a tax on the sick and the elderly because we will protect the sick and the elderly. We will have our seniors, we will still cover people who are not seniors as well. Thank you.

I’d just like to recognize the clock. The time for oral questions has expired, so I will allow the Member to conclude his supplementary questions. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Prior to 2004, the health policy was designated under the disease state coverage. It worked. It may not have been perfect, but it worked, Mr. Speaker. So if you had diabetes you could get care specific to diabetes. That didn’t mean that if you had the sniffles you could get a prescription automatically for antibiotics or who knows what just because you had the sniffles, Mr. Speaker, but that’s the way it’s set up now. It was like a slippery slope, those changes back in 2004. Disease state worked and I’m going to tell you right now that the network and process still exists. We could go back to the old system and it worked, Mr. Speaker.

I’m ashamed that this is the best, when the Minister talks about this three to four years to do, I’m embarrassed that this is the best we could come up with; truly I am. The question to the Minister is why do we waive some of the fees for some of the people, but why can’t we just waive the fees for the rest of the people? We’ve provided enough solutions how to do that. Why not? Thank you.

The fact of the matter is the old disease and conditions list did not work, and it doesn’t work now. Every day I get a request from the Member, every other Member, I get calls from all over the Territories wanting to know why we’re

not covering this, we’re not covering that, this medication, there’s a new disease that comes on that gets diagnosed, there are new drugs in the market that we’re not able to pay, we have new wheelchairs, I don’t know, the list goes on. I’m sure if I did the Hansard research I could find a statement made by the honourable Member from Yellowknife Centre who said our program doesn’t work. This is the reason why we’ve had to review this. The better thing about our new program is that it has a mechanism for appeal. Right now there is no mechanism for appeal and under the new program we would allow for an independent appeal process where somebody could appeal their income status, as well as what’s included and not included in the program. Thank you.

Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I started this question period off from my set of questions asking did she take it back to Cabinet with the issues that I raised and somewhat similar as what other Members have raised here. She has implied or made it clear yes. I’d like to ask her, will she table every stitch of information that she’s brought to the Cabinet table to show that she’s provided an alternative approach than the one being presented, the one that this government has buckled into, the one that we have to thank the 15th Assembly for,

that this Cabinet keeps defending and saying it’s the way to go? Will she provide this House and table in this House and if we can’t table it due to Cabinet secrecy or whatnot, will she make sure that it’s provided to every Member up there in the House under a confidential basis so we can see what the Minister has proposed other than just continuing to shovel the 15th Assembly policy on this House?

Thank you.

I am aware, Mr. Speaker, that the Member considers himself a student of rules and procedures of the House. I know he knows the rules and procedures of the House. He studies books on the rules and procedures of the House. Mr. Speaker, he knows that I’m not privy to table Cabinet documents, but the Member is also aware that every major information and analysis about this program would go to Cabinet and then it was made available to committees. That’s our regular practice.

Mr. Speaker, if the Member has any other alternatives that he wants us to consider, we would look at that. This has been a very open process, Mr. Speaker, and we will continue to do that. Thank you.

Item 8, written questions. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Mr. Speaker, I‘d like to seek unanimous consent to return to item 7 on the Order Paper, oral questions.

---Unanimous consent granted

Thank you. I’d just like to follow up on my questions that I asked previously to the Minister of Health and Social Services with regard to the process in place for examining complaints about the conduct of physicians in the Northwest Territories. Again, I want to be clear, I’m not talking about a whole lot of people. I’m talking about one person. But I need to understand this process, as do my constituents who have concerns about the conduct of this individual.

Mr. Speaker, in response to a previous question, the Minister stated that these things can take a while. That is frightening to me, because when there is a complaint made and this person continues to practice, it necessarily puts other people at risk. I’d like to ask the Minister: what could contribute to this process taking a while? We are, as a government, and she, as a Minister, responsible to protect the public interest. People who are sick are vulnerable. People who are mentally ill are even more vulnerable. It is incumbent on us to make sure that the people who are providing services to them are reliable and of good standing and of good conduct and character. Why would this take a while? Thank you.

The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do want to let the Member know that I do agree that people who have concerns of this nature should be able to go through the process and have the matter resolved as soon as possible.

Mr. Speaker, I would have to commit to look into how long certain cases do take, what is the normal course of process in going through this. I have to tell the Member that this does not come across my desk very often. I think I might have been thinking about a court case that seemed to take a little longer, but that’s different than the board of inquiry. So, Mr. Speaker, I just do not have information in front of me to give her the information about how long this takes. I am aware the Medical Profession Act has very specified steps laid out as to how this process takes place and I will undertake to get back to the Member. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, if the conduct of a certain practitioner has been brought into question, if that has been out there unresolved for a period of time and that person continues to practice, does the Minister not see the problem or the danger in that occurring? I’ll ask the Minister again: is she aware of any practicing member of the

medical profession in the Northwest Territories who is under investigation at this time and continues to deliver services to the people of the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, as I stated earlier, the Medical Profession Act does state the process by which a complaint against a practicing physician is conducted. It does try to balance the rights of the client as well as the physician, Mr. Speaker. I’d be happy to give the Member a private briefing on how this works. Once in a while we do get concerns from people about what they are not happy with about what the doctor has done or not, or any other health care professional. There are different phases that this goes through. Sometimes just talking to the local authority resolves the matter. Other times it goes further down the steps. I do not have the information on how many are under investigation and I would undertake to get back to the Member. Thank you.

[Microphone turned off.] …again. Might I suggest that it is the Minister’s job to make herself aware of any outstanding complaints about the conduct of somebody who’s delivering services, medical professional services to the people of the Northwest Territories? This is not unheard of in other professions. Sometimes RCMP members are under investigation. Often you hear that until the matter is resolved, their rights and their work is suspended until the matter is cleared up. That takes care of protecting their rights. Sometimes you hear of it in cases of teachers. Not so much around here but in southern Canada you hear of teachers who are suspended with pay.

Mr. Speaker, I suggest to this Minister that there is someone practicing medicine in this Territory today who has been under investigation for years and this matter has not been… And this is adding double agony and strife to this person who has laid a complaint, for this not to be dealt with in an expeditious manner. That is owed to them by whatever practice or process she’s talking about that’s outlined in the Medical Profession Act. That is owed to this person. I am very alarmed, and I hope the public out there is alarmed to hear that somebody could be practicing who has been under investigation for years and just chooses not to cooperate with the process or the system or their peers. I mean, how can that be allowed to happen? This is squarely this Minister’s responsibility.

As I said at the beginning of my Member’s statement today, I have made the Minister aware of this and so now for her to stand up in the House and say she’s not aware of it, she’s had days to prepare herself to respond to these questions, because I forewarned her. I’d like to ask the Minister again: is there an ongoing investigation into somebody who is currently practicing medicine

in the Northwest Territories today that brings their conduct into question? Thank you.