Thank you, Madam Chair. Welcome, Minister of Health and department here again this afternoon. It’s interesting. I am sitting here listening to the Minister’s opening remarks, and the first paragraph indicates $363 million, which is a 4 percent increase from last year. It makes it sound like that is an incredible number, which it is. But when you factor in forced growth, we’re not even touching the issues that are affecting the residents of the Northwest Territories, in my opinion. In fact, you’ll hear for three days on what that opinion is very valid. We’re not even near.

I am hoping the Minister of Finance is paying attention across the hall here because, in his opening statement, we have the best health care in the world. Don’t worry about it, be proud of it. If we’re that proud, then we shouldn’t be hearing much stuff today and in the next few days.

There’s lots to be talking about here. We are hoping that the government, Finance, FMB, Cabinet, will listen here. We have some capacity issues here. We’re lacking lots of opportunity for our residents. I want to just cover a few of those. These are areas that are impacting the services to all the people in the Northwest Territories. I’m on record: This is not acceptable. We are not putting enough money in our programs and we need to increase this budget.

We lack capacity in so many areas. So much so that this committee, I am going to call it this committee on Social Programs, made strong recommendations to this department to increase prevention and promotion to the tune of $4.6 million. When I read your statement today, it sounds like this is a department initiative. This was a committee initiative. This was due to the hard work of committee bringing forward ideas and opportunities to enhance prevention and promotion. I want to make sure that is clear. This is not something that was… Of course, at the end of the day, it’s collaborative, but this is because we had a position on a lot of areas that were important to people in the Northwest Territories and we’re glad the department was listening.

In no particular order here, I’m going to talk about some of the areas where I believe that the Minister has touched on in his opening remarks, but I’m going to actually spend a lot more time talking on stuff that was not in the opening comments that I think are a grave concern. They may be covered in detail or they may not, but I think it’s important to bring them forward today.

Talk about midwifery. The studies have all been done, they are available, they are tabled. Anyone can pull them up. All of the recommendations are made, and have been made, and they’re clear in terms of where we can go with this, but yet the budget we have before us is only a step approach that will be implemented over two to three years. I think the Members here, and the people of the Northwest Territories, are wondering why. Why do we need to do a step approach? Midwifery has been in the Northwest Territories for a number of years. To not give it its opportunity to go to its full potential, well, we’ll find out tomorrow when we see a rally here in this House. There are going to be a lot of people wondering that very same question. So we’ll leave that to tomorrow. I think that is a good one for tomorrow.

Discussed very briefly in the opening comments was chronic disease management. The Auditor General report was tabled almost two years ago and it made heavy recommendations on how we deal with diabetes. We thought that at that point in time, the department had a clear ruling from a very authoritative and respected resource in terms of cleaning up its act with chronic disease management models for authorities and practitioners. It is clear that we’re still struggling in that area. Again, this is not mentioned in the budget.

Also not seen in the budget is the Integrated Service Delivery Model. There was Auditor General recommendations for this model for improvements. There were performance agreements that needed to be assigned to all health authorities to have all health authorities on board, yet February 2013, there are still some outstanding and that’s a concern.

We talked about system-wide goals and targets, ensuring that we have all the right indicators. There have been improvements, I’m not going to deny that, but we’re not there yet and we need to see it. These are all recommendations of the Auditor General.

Medical Travel Policy. I’ve been here for 16 months and yet we have not seen the full policy in front of us. We have been promised it in the fall of 2012 and we are in 2013, still nothing in front of the committee for review. We are not seeing it in the opening comments.

Adequate staffing for long-term care facilities, a grave concern for many of us. Again, not in the opening comments.

We talked about opportunities within our supplementary health benefits and our medical travel, and a proper appeals process so that the people in the Northwest Territories have means to do a proper appeal process. Again, not in the opening comments.

Prevention of family violence, there is a definite lacking in that area. Again, the Minister is aware of that. Again, not in the opening comments.

Mental health and addictions has been spoken here a few times by my colleagues. You will probably hear more. What we’re doing here is clearly a very piecemeal approach to care. This 2013-14 business budget or plan really is inadequate to achieving the goals of this Assembly. We are throwing rice at a freight train. Without the proper financing in that area, really we are not going to see the true effect of what every person in the Northwest Territories has been asking us. The budget dialogues that the Minister of Finance has gone from community to community, it came up, and yet are we heeding to the wishes of our citizens? I’m not sure.

I know, as a Member, I have spoken many times about the opportunities in our supplementary health benefits, the way those benefits are administered, the way we do the adjudication process for prescription medications. Again, I have to be careful. I am always careful about conflict of interest and I understand that, but there are savings there, and yet, time and time again, this Member is being ignored in terms of the true opportunity for savings and how we administer the supplementary health benefits.

I’m a stickler for filing things on time. I think anyone here who has to file taxes and do those types of things are in the same boat. A lot of the people in the Northwest Territories I am sure would be pleased to understand that we have a number of health authorities who are in violation, who aren’t filing their annual reports on time. These are really the report cards of performance. The Financial Administration Act clearly indicates that these have to be done on a regular basis, and yet, up until recently, we had some that were as far back as five years in arrears in filing. These are critical. These are capacity issues, but, yet again, we have lots of money I guess in this department, as the Finance Minister says, and we don’t have to worry about it.

I have indicated some of the stuff that is in his opening comments and I have also indicated probably more so those that are not in the opening comments. I am sure we will see some of these in details as we move on. Thank you, Madam Chair.