The last, there are a few smaller items in here, too, but with the time allotted, the last key item again has long-term benefits in cost and is trying to provide for care for elders in the home. Right now the overall government policy doesn’t make it really easy for individuals to care for their elders. If we have an elder -- and we have that situation occurring a few times in both communities that I represent, in Lutselk’e and Fort Resolution -- where younger family members are either living with their elderly parents or their elderly grandparents. Without those members supporting the elderly, those people would be in long-term care. Long-term care is very expensive and it is lonely for the elders and it displaces them and the only long-term care, really, is outside of those types of small communities that I represent. I think the government should put things in place, whether it be housing, income support or various health programs, to accommodate those individuals for living with their elderly parents or grandparents, because the long-term benefit, and even the immediate benefit, is there.

I don’t know what the exact cost of putting someone in long-term care is, but I know it is fairly high. It is fairly significant. There is staff, there is nursing, there are all of those things that these guys are actually taking care of, these guys that can deal with the medications, other needs, shopping, driving the elderly around, taking care of any maintenance that is needed in the house and so on. The government needs to respond to those people

and support them so that when they are there... Sometimes it is a little bit of a sacrifice to do this, for a young person to be given the responsibility in the family to be the one that takes care of the elder in the family. There are some sacrifices that go along with that and the government doesn’t make it real easy. It is not necessarily health, I am just talking in general, but this is an area where I think health could right the model and followed by other departments, they would be able to say that if an individual is taking care of the elderly, these are the benefits to doing that and right now it is the opposite, there are more deterrents than benefits. I would just like to see if the Minister would look at something like that working with other departments. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.