Mr. Chairman, I guess by and large the concern from a number of constituents is that once the rally cry was heard and government decided to respond in what I would define as a favourable way, the public that spoke to me is the concern that they have disappeared on this particular issue and they are worried about what government may be fine tuning without sort of a public progress report of some sort. It is great that the Minister is speaking to the standing committee. I am aware of that, but from a public point of view, it is kind of scary to know that the government is taking care of you. It has a lot of people worried too. Is the Minister able to provide, for lack of better terms, a public progress report on the development and, more specific, some further principles to dial down into specific areas of adjustment? In essence, the public is concerned. This is a particular issue that people want to make sure they’re following fairly reasonably.

I am aware of the public’s interest on this issue and I am wanting to get the information out as well. So we will be going to the public in very short order. Thank you.

In the context of this is what we’ll be doing or is it in the context of a progress report working to the final fine-tuning position? Thank you.

It will be in the context of working with the recommendations from the Joint Working Group report, which is out there in the public. So we are responding to the direction from the Legislature by way of that committee report. Thank you.

When can the public have an expectation to be able to see something that they can put their hands on or read to see where the government is fully going? I have heard the

Minister’s response each time when she says the Joint Working Group’s direction, we’ll call it that, when they cast a position and it seems to be the one that the government’s following, but like anything, the devil is always in the detail and that’s where they’re a little nervous. So, in other words, when can we expect something in paper form or official form? I’ll say it that way. I don’t really care if it’s in paper or not. When can they see it and have a chance to comment on the progress government is making? Thank you.

I would think that we will have that out in the next two or three weeks. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Minister Lee. Next on my list is Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you. Just to follow up, Mr. Chair, on the supplementary health benefits and the recommendations that came from the committee. I know in the Minister’s sessional statement from the last session she talked about this spring we would have new policies coming out and see where things are going to be followed up on the recommendations. I guess I just wanted to get clarification in terms of what she’s exchanging with MLA Hawkins in terms of their report that the government is now implementing on the supplementary health. I want to see where the working poor, how that issue is being followed up in seeing that the working poor has access to some of the health benefits now that we have. So is it two or three weeks or is it this spring that we’re going to see some of the policies that are going to be implemented based on the recommendations that the report suggested?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I indicated, we’ve completed our internal work. We would like to get them out to the public. I’m just wanting to let everybody know that the framework within which we’ve been working on is the recommendations from the Joint Working Group report. At this point, having heard what we have heard, we are not anticipating coming out with a whole new policy or making sweeping changes. What we are trying to do is do what we can within the existing policy framework and to try to accommodate some of the recommendations that were brought up by the Joint Working Group. I appreciate that there are people who are interested in this, so we will get them out as soon as possible so everyone can have a look at it. Thank you.

I look forward to the report the Minister is going to release.

I want to ask the Minister about this budget line item on medical travel. In the 2010-11 revised estimates, there’s $19 million. In the 2011-12 main estimates, it’s $15 million. I want to ask the Minister

what justified the lowering of that number? What happened there?

Mr. Elkin, please.

Thank you, Minister Lee. Mr. Elkin.

Thank you, Mr. Elkin. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for the explanation. I want to ask the Minister about the billing issues in medical travel. Do we still have some disputes with the federal government in regard to medevac or any type of billing issues? I know we have a history and we used to have some issues there. Do we still carry on with some of the outstanding issues that we had in the past with the feds?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We don’t have a dispute with the federal government on billing issues with medical travel. In fact, what Mr. Elkin referred to THAF, we received extra funding to deal with medical travel issues. As the Members know, we have an extension of two years and part of our obligation is to exit out of the program and determine how we are going to support this program from within. So that’s one of the reasons why we’re reviewing the medical travel, but as Mr. Elkin mentioned, we were able to extend THAF and now it’s called THSSI and we were able to secure some extra money for medical travel for the next two years. Thank you.

Again, I’d like to ask the Minister about medical travel. I understand that the department will be reviewing its Medical Travel Policy and I myself being personally involved in medical travel in the Northwest Territories, look forward to having some meaningful discussions with the Minister and the staff about my own experience with medical travel. I won’t take up the time now to talk about it, but at a different time in terms of how medical has been with me at least and my family and I’m not very happy with it. I don’t need to say any more right now, but I wanted to have the opportunity to have that time with the Minister to go further into details and to talk about that.

My door is open, we can talk about it anytime. We do and we have and we will continue to talk about this. Thank you.

Next on my list, on page 8-25, is Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have one question. I wanted to follow up to the questions and answers from Mr. Bromley earlier relative to the possible changes to the Extended Health Benefits Program and the concern I think that all Members have with those who are not currently covered. I don’t think there was any argument during the debate on the changes to the Supplementary Health Program that we did not want to cover those people who aren’t covered, and if I understood the Minister correctly, I heard her say that there will not be any consideration of how to cover those people until the 17

th

Assembly. If that’s the case, I really

am somewhat stumped. I don’t understand, if we have to develop a policy I understand that, but I don’t understand why we have to wait another 10 months before we start to develop a policy or if we develop a policy and take it to Cabinet. We still have time left in this Assembly. I think it’s an area of policy that ought to be looked at. As I mentioned earlier, it’s a specific area, a specific core of our residents who are not currently covered by extended health benefits and they should be. So I would like to ask the Minister why we can’t start the process to look at those people, that core group of people now. Why do we have to put it off until the 17

th

Assembly?

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Ms. Lee.

Wow. Let me just be brief. I guess just one reason, as I stated earlier, is that given the discussions we’ve had over the last two or three years, we were told clearly that the Supplementary Health Benefits Policy that was approved, but not in effect yet, should be rescinded. We did that. A core part of that policy was an income threshold which, in turn, determined a group of people that we considered to be working poor. We were told, in no uncertain terms, that our public does not want us to determine health benefits by income. So that’s where we are.

As I stated earlier, we are following and we have been reviewing the recommendations from the Joint Working Group report to see what we can adapt within the short time frame that we have. We know that the process requires that whenever we are establishing a new policy or are making major changes to a policy, we have to follow that consultation process. That would have to be done on this policy.

It makes it difficult. As just a practical point of view, how do we determine working poor if we have done away with income testing? Is there another way to determine working poor? Secondly, if we are going

to not determine working poor, that means just universal coverage on all supplementary health benefits and that would require a policy change, and I think that’s something that we need to talk about.

We, as a society, have to say, okay, do we want to cover everybody for supplementary health benefits? I think there are many who might think that we should and I think there will be many who will say not. That’s a major, major public policy to date and that will have to be done as a process. It’s not something that I think that I could do within the direction I got out of Joint Working Group.