Surely, I don’t believe at any time, as the Minister of Health, have I ever downplayed the deficit situation in our health care system. That’s what occupies my mind as the Minister and my fellow Members on Cabinet. This is something that’s in the forefront of all Health Ministers in all jurisdictions. The entire country and the world is under pressure to address our health care funding needs.
Mr. Speaker, I could tell you that in ’09 and ’10 our system deficit was $14.685 million. We project this year that the system deficit will be reduced by about $4 million to $5 million. That’s as a result of just relentless and just yeoman’s work that our managers at Stanton, and medical directors, and Beau-Del, and the chairs are working to see how we make system-wide change. The easiest thing for us, not easy but the short-sighted way would be to reduce services or just do an across-the-board 10 percent reduction or something. That’s not acceptable. We are changing the system and we are seeing results, and our forecast for this year is much less. I think people would agree that they have not seen any lessening of services, which is what they expect us to do. They expect us to change the system for the better, without affecting their services. Thank you.