Mr. Speaker, we’re going to be challenged with our core services, like the Member has talked about, the basic medical services in communities. We’re going to be challenged with supplementary health. What we are trying to do is reprofile some finding. We are looking at putting in on a supplementary program some income testing to assist us to do that to control the costs, to be able to provide the service to all Northerners, including the working poor that currently aren’t included. At the same time, recognizing, as we look in our budgets and we look at our strategic initiatives and the work in the small communities, that there are significant unmet issues in those communities.

Our challenge is going to be to deal, first and foremost, with our core services. I mean, that’s what we expect in every community. So we have that challenge and everything we can do, be it building an office building in Yellowknife that could free up $100 million a year, be it looking at inclusive schooling, looking at other formulas that may not be set up the most proper way and we could look at being more efficient, those are all areas we are going to be looking at that the Members have told us to go and do the work and be creative and find our efficiencies. So our challenge is going to be to

do that to meet the very needs that the Members raise so passionately in this House today.

I would just like to recognize that the time for oral question has expired, but I will allow the Member to conclude his supplementary and final question. Supplementary question, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, I ask the Minister of Finance, in your analysis as the Finance Minister, if we were to go ahead or not go ahead with what we’re talking about today in terms of long-term impact benefits, again, I will say to the people in the Sahtu, this would greatly hinge on my decision as to basic services that we do not receive in the Sahtu communities or any other small communities that we so desperately want to see in our communities. This is very important to me as a Member, as a Member who represents a community that has a facility like Colville Lake that, still today -- we talk about it -- has a honey bucket system for the washroom in their health centre. This is crazy. So, again, this is what we are faced with in terms of the Supp Health Program and issues that we have to face in our small communities when we go back to our region.

Can I ask the Minister again, in terms of is this program, again, in all his analysis as the Finance Minister, saying our current health system and as for the basic needs that we’re asking for now in our small communities?

Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, if we continue to do business as usual and if we continue just to accept the fact that we’re going to have continued expansion to programs like this, supplementary ones, when we know that we’re not meeting all our core services, that if we don’t come up with creative ways and if we don’t recognize that the issue of universality in areas like supplementary programs is not affordable in any jurisdiction including ours, then it will limit our ability to meet the needs that we have in the core service areas that currently we are struggling to meet. Thank you.

Your final question, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister indicated that over the years we are going to have to look at the list of priorities in terms of how we spend our money, how we look at revenue, how we want to be able to sustain our needs in the Northwest Territories. Some of these priorities, for example, are some of the expenditures that I guess we can call in question. For example, the issue of building liquor stores in another region here over the front-line service workers. Is there some of this that we are going to look at in terms of what do we put ahead of the front-line health services in our communities?

Mr. Speaker, The Government of the Northwest Territories has responsibility that covers 360 degrees of the compass. We have to allocate money. We have legal responsibilities, mandated responsibilities. We have responsibilities that are there by choice and by need. Our challenge is going to be, as we do for every business planning process, to make those choices. There is discussion in the House that the Member for Kam Lake pointed out. We have many challenges ahead of us, unmet needs, pressures to contain our costs and control our expenditures at the same time, trying to look at revenues but not raise the tax burden on Northerners. We have to make those choices. We have been making them collectively for the 15 years I have been here and all the years before that this Assembly has been in existence. I want to point out once again that we have managed to do that successfully during the three most turbulent years in our economic history since the 1920s. Thank you.

Item 9, written questions. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to seek unanimous consent to return to item 8 today on the Order Paper, oral questions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Unanimous consent granted

Item 8, oral questions. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On Tuesday, May 11th , I asked a question to the

Minister of Health and Social Services regarding Section 5, in a very similar vein as Mr. Abernethy has. I asked the Minister of Health and Social Services, has she ever taken back some of these issues to Cabinet to revisit this change to the policy of supplementary health. In her answer on page 31, she remarked outstandingly with a clear absolutely. Mr. Speaker, of course, later during the day, I had asked if she could table those facts. Of course, she began to tell me no, how she can’t. Today in answering Mr. Abernethy’s question, when he asked the same question in a different way, of course, regarding Section 5, about what had been brought back to Cabinet for reconsideration, her answer to Mr. Abernethy was, they don’t see the need to because the analysis has already been done. Mr. Speaker, in an unclever way, I am trying to figure out the contradiction of these two answers over simply two different days.

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister of Health and Social Services clear up this clear contradiction that the House is now struggling with one way or the other? Thank you.

Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is no contradiction there. I don’t think it will surprise anybody that the Supplementary Health Benefits Policy has been before Cabinet more often than most issues; probably not as many as Deh Cho Bridge, but, Mr. Speaker, it has been a popular topic in Cabinet.

We take the input from the public very seriously. We understand how difficult it is to make any changes to a health basket of benefits that a lot of people hold dear. We went out with the first implementation at the end of November 2008. We heard a lot of things from the public. We took it back to the drawing board. We had somebody look at the entire program, top to bottom, upside down. We did do that and throughout the course of that review, I have gone back to the Cabinet about what we are finding, what does it mean, what are the other jurisdictions doing, what is the user profile of the people that are using it, what is our people’s ability to pay, what is a non-insured service versus insured service, what does it mean to have an income threshold of this and that and whatever, how are we going to do the public hearing, who are we going to talk to, how long do we have. We have done all of that.

Mr. Speaker, I do totally respect that this is a very, very difficult issue. But, Mr. Speaker, I don’t think there has been lots of discussion on this side of the table about this policy. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I have to admit, I think the contradiction in two answers still lies before the House. The Minister will tell us that she is looking for suggestions. It is almost as if she is pointing at us for those suggestions. Mr. Speaker, time and time again Members have said, as well as the public who is here today have said, consider this. Additional taxation, look for efficiencies, find another way.

Mr. Speaker, where is the analysis in answering those questions? Where is the proof to show that they have been considered? Where is the proof that the Minister has taken the time to listen to the public who struggled very hard with this issue that she seems to be clearly ignoring? Thank you.

This is just to remind the Members in the gallery if we can have some order in the House. We don’t usually applaud in the House, so if you could keep it down. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Mr. Speaker, the policy says if the Minister wants to make revisions, the Minister

has to make specific recommendations on that. We incorporated the feedback that we had heard and if we were to decide that income test will not be used or the major items of the policy was to be changed, that would have had to go back to Cabinet.

The fact of the matter is, we did the analysis. We as a government feel that this cannot be universal. The Minister of Finance did a round of consultation on revenue options and taxation. We heard soundly from everyone that raising tax is not an option that we should look at. We heard people suggesting premiums, people suggesting other means. You do the analysis and you listen to those and you review them, but unless you are going to make a recommendation to change the policy, you don’t have to raise that specific question. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I think we could have saved five minutes by just saying nothing. Mr. Speaker, honestly, this is very upsetting and certainly shameful. The Minister will keep telling this House and the people of the North that the silent majority support her. Mr. Speaker, I was camped out in front of the post office, Shopper’s Drug Mart and a few other places having people sign post cards. Lots of people signed it to tell the Minister to revisit this policy, Mr. Speaker. I only had maybe one or two people said they liked the direction. Mr. Speaker, there is not a silent majority on this issue. Where are the Minister’s facts on that silent majority supported? I am not talking about the people who are covered or the people who always will be covered. I am talking about where are the people of the silent majority who won’t be covered showing you this is the right way to go? Will the Minister prove that to this House and prove that to the people in the gallery and prove that to the people of the Northwest Territories? Thank you?

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated already, I will be tabling a document later today that speaks to what we have heard. Mr. Speaker, there are people who are writing to us and telling us that, and even the Members here have said that we do need to find a way to bring in the people who are excluded. We are having disagreements about how we do that. I appreciate that. There are people who say, go universal, make this part of core service. We have a challenge to that as a government.

If I had all the money in the world, I would like to make everybody happy and pay for all the medication, equipment and no income testing, no nothing, just take care of our people to the fullest extent possible. We do not have that luxury. Yes, taxation option, we have consulted with their departments about raising taxes to pay for this, but the challenge we have is no other governments in the country would raise taxes to pay for something that is not a core service. I know some people would like us to make this a core service, but that is

a value question on the government. That is something that I would differ.

Mr. Speaker, I’m not in any way suggesting that people are telling me to do this, do this, do this, that’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is I am listening. I do understand what people are saying, and I understand how difficult this is. We need to keep on trying to work this out. Thank you.

Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not sure I’m going to call this a consultation, because I certainly would not define it as meaningful. Mr. Speaker, there were legitimate questions asked by the public in a way to address this situation. Certainly, find efficiencies in some form and do a strategy around that, and certainly consider the option of taxation. If it can be spread out across the Territory so we can all share in the much needed, important essence of health care. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Dana Heide, probably to his long-term regret, let it quite clearly slip that he was always given the direction, because of the policy, to do this with a co-payment. Mr. Speaker, that was never the intent from this side of the House, as the focus. Mr. Speaker, it was always about starting in a fair and equitable way.

Mr. Speaker, when will the public be able to listen to the answers that the Minister has heard in the form of questions? Will the Minister be responding in any public way before the policy is cut and dry and can never be changed? Will she give the public that one more chance to speak to it once the formal policy is made public before it’s implemented?

Thank you. The fact of the matter is we are, and the Members know that I have made a presentation to the planning committee. We have a process in place where we work on policies like this together. Mr. Speaker, I don’t know if there is any forum more public than the Legislative Assembly. This is a work in progress and I have a proposal before the Members and I look forward to hearing what Members have to say. Thank you.

The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

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