Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. There have been a number of questions posed to the Minister over the past couple of weeks in regard to naturopathic medicine and the licensing of that practice in the Northwest Territories. I would like to continue on that vein, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to begin by asking the Minister -- she has been hard to get a commitment out of, but I am going to try again today to get a commitment out of her -- can the Minister provide Members of this House with any correspondence she sent back to inquiries she or her department has had regarding the licensing of naturopathic medicine in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had an inquiry about this issue. I have asked my staff to meet with people in question. The meeting was held. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I wasn’t sure if I heard her say the meeting was held or wasn’t held, but would the Minister commit to sitting down face to face with her officials, the deputy minister, with the naturopathic doctors to move their concerns forward? Will she commit to that? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, what response is the Minister referring to, when it was sent and who it was sent to and when this meeting supposedly took place? I would like to ask the Minister those questions. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t know exactly what he is asking. Mr. Speaker, with respect to the naturopath issue, I received correspondence last fall. I asked the staff to meet with the person so that we could explain what the situation is with naturopath practice. Also, there was a concern that there might be a misuse of the word “doctor,” given that our Medical Profession Act states that it prohibits use of that word where there might be some misunderstanding that some people may be practicing medicine. I am just saying this because that is what the Medical Profession Act says.

There were meetings held in December. Our staff, the director of policy of the department met with the person in question to give them information. They had agreed to continue to communicate on this issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Whether or not somebody can be called a doctor, that is not the question that I asked the Minister. I am not sure why she had to say that again.

Anyway, getting back to the question about correspondence back to the naturopathic doctors who have inquired about licensing in the Northwest Territories, I’d like to ask the Minister, has the Minister signed any letter going back to the

naturopathic doctors in terms of licensing in the Northwest Territories. If she hasn’t, when will she? Thank you.

Thank you. I can tell you right now he’s not going to like this answer, but perhaps he might understand if I tell him that I can’t necessarily write to everybody who writes to my office. There are some people who write to my office that has to do with operational and administrative issues. When it has to do with the regulating practice, often on many issues I write personally to all the MLAs that write to me, I respond to constituents, but there are issues where it’s operational and it is within my responsibility to assign staff to meet with them. So in this situation I assigned the staff to meet with her and that meeting took place in December, whereby she was given technical background about the state of affairs, which I believe was the right thing to do. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today my Member’s statement was on the high price of the Food Mail Program and the high cost of food in the communities. It is a huge problem. Mr. Speaker, my question today is for the Premier. Will the Premier work with the federal government to help ensure that the food mail subsidies are visible to the consumers of the Northwest Territories and effective in bringing down the food prices in the remote communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The food mail issue has indeed been raised here a number of times in past sessions and during this session. We worked and supported the work of many groups in the North to have that program reviewed by the federal government. It’s our understanding, through Minister Lee’s office, that they are going to delay implementation of the new program for a year, is my understanding. Thank you.

Thank you. Will the Premier contact the advisory board with the federal program to help him improve the Food Subsidy Program in regard to the costing and showing the prices right in the stores? Thank you.

Thank you. From our understanding, the review has been done. They were working to implement the new program that would see retailers dealing with the subsidy instead of through Canada Post and what we were informed was it’s October 2012 that they will implement this revised Food Mail Program and we

will, of course, correspond with the appropriate authorities in this area around that implementation and delays on that. Thank you.

Thank you. Once it’s given to the retailers, we have to have something in place that’s going to police them in regard to the pricing and making sure the subsidy is getting to the people, especially in the small communities because it’s the highest cost of food in the Northwest Territories.

What else can the government do directly to help bring down the price of basic foods in the remote communities? Thank you.

Thank you. The area of the Food Mail Program, again, as a government department we’ve handled it through a number of departments in the past. At this point, through Minister Lee’s office she has the charge of working with the groups on this and any information or concerns that people have, or Members have on that and communities, we can pool that together and through her office make the connection and raise those concerns. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a good program, the Food Mail Program. The federal government is trying to help people in the small, remote communities and I have nothing but good to say about the program. Will the Premier commit today to working with the federal government in making sure that this program helps all fly-in communities in the Northwest Territories to make sure that the cost is being passed on to the people? Thank you.

Thank you. There are a number of other communities as well that benefit from the Food Mail Program. Of course, we will look at the implementation of this program and ensure that the appropriate people benefit from this program, and many times it’s been raised in here that it’s the cost of food in the communities that needs to be affected. We’ve shared those concerns in the past and we’ll, again, follow up with more communications in that area. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Premier and I’d like to follow up with him on some questions that I asked last week in regard to the Auditor General’s report on the Deh Cho Bridge.

We’ve received a lot of information since last week and I am not asking questions to point fingers and

assign blame at this point; I’m trying to clarify a couple of things, which I don’t believe I got answers to last week.

In February of 2008, the government changed regulations to provide what is a standard indemnity for the bridge project lenders and a by-product of that was the removal of the requirement to provide notice of that change to Members. There was a 14-day notice period, apparently. I’d like to ask the Premier again, why were Members not advised, even if we had to be advised after the fact, that this regulation change had occurred. Thank you.