I believe it was the former, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks for clarifying that, Mr. Minister. My fear on the subject is now that we’re waiting for the Cabinet and Minister to rule on whether to have what’s in everyone’s mind an open and transparent process, and because the House will not reconvene until May 23

rd of this year, which is well into the spring

construction season, can we expect to have the Department of Transportation or the Minister confirm their decision to open this public project to public tendering before the end of this next week’s sitting?

A decision on procurement will be made by Cabinet sometime this month. To the dates, I wouldn’t want to pin it down to a certain date, but certainly by the end of the month we will have a way forward on the procurement of the Highway No. 4 realignment, at which time we’ll gladly convey that to the Members of this House.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my questions that were posed by Mr. Hawkins from Yellowknife Centre with respect to that welcome news that we read in the media recently that there is an alternate airport to the Municipal Airport being contemplated as a landing point for medevacs out of the North, that being the Garrison. Now, I can’t say that I heard every single answer that Mr. Beaulieu provided, but might I suggest that the cooperation and the agreement… The contract between our government and the Alberta Health Services for medical service for our NWT residents in Alberta is an extremely integral piece of the infrastructure of the services that we provide to Northerners. I’d like to ask the Minister if he is going to take a proactive role in the discussions to identify a more suitable landing location for medevacs from the North than the Edmonton International Airport and pursue this idea of the Garrison Airport and be involved in that.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the discussion previously that involved the Municipal Airport and International Airport, the GNWT provided input to the Health Quality Council last winter. From the Territories we had our deputy minister, the Stanton Senior Management Team, we had the Joint Senior Management Council representative, we had a medical director, we had the emergency physician and personnel representative. We also had representatives from the medical travel people involved with this. So we have been involved in that discussion. This is a relatively new thing and we’re aware of some of the information but we haven’t engaged at this time.

From anything that I heard, and I don’t pretend to be a professional or extremely knowledgeable in this area, however, from anything I heard, the time between getting people from the International Airport to the hospitals that are in city centre, basically, was a concern. The time factor, if weather was an issue, the ground transportation, these were all concerns. If there is an alternate landing site for medevacs coming out of the North, will the Minister ensure that he puts his voice forward in promoting something that may well be in the interests of Northerners travelling?

Yes, as I indicated earlier, we feel that this airport at Garrison deserves, warrants full consideration and I will ensure that the Department of Health does fully consider this as a viable option for landing.

I’m sure that the Alberta Health Services is very interested in having a say in

this as well. Certainly, we do spend millions of dollars on a contract with them and they give us excellent service and have over the years. This Municipal Airport closure is something that could prove to be problematic. I would like to ask the Minister if his department would not be bystanders in this discussion but will really put some resources into examining the viability of this Garrison alternative and take the first step and a proactive step to determine if that is a better solution than Edmonton International Airport.

Yes, we will contact the appropriate people. My understanding is the Department of National Defence are the owners of the strip and we’ll be in touch with them to see if this is a viable option for medevac flights.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Colleagues, before we continue I’d like to welcome back Ms. Regina Pfeiffer, former analyst with the Legislative Assembly research branch and current executive director of the Local Government Administrators of the Northwest Territories. Welcome back, Regina. It’s always good to see you. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are to the Minister of Health and Social Services. I spoke about the need for a compassionate policy and I want to ask the Minister what special accommodations, if any, does the health system make when a person is dying of a terminal illness.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this time the various health and social services authorities approach this from different angles. We don’t have a standard policy across the board from the various health and social services authorities at this time on handling the area of compassion.

Would the Minister work with his department and the government to see if there is a way to look at a compassionate policy that would handle situations such as this and this nature to help out the people in our communities?

Yes, we have, based on some recent deaths and how we recognize that the authorities are handling the compassion, the assistance to the families and so on. We’ve looked at a policy that was once developed but never signed by a particular health authority and we are looking at that to develop a policy for the sick, dying and also in the area of compassion.

Would the Minister of Health and Social Services look at this policy, this compassion policy we have within the next, say, before the business plan so that we can have some discussions with the appropriate committee and see if it meets the needs of the people? Bring forth the policy maybe by May or June, if that’s possible.

The intention was to look at this right away. The direction has been given to the department through the deputy minister and other senior management to look at this policy, and if I know the department and senior management well, I am expecting some drafts soon. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have the exact amount but I do know that if we’re talking about medical travel, medevac planes landing in Alberta, we land there approximately 350 times a year.