Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to the Minister for the opening remarks. There are a number of things in the opening remarks I want to mention and there are a few other things. These aren’t in any particular order.

I’d like to start off in terms of the statement by the Minister about the additional $4.6 million in the budget. I think it was mentioned earlier by one of the Members that we should be able to do more with less. I’m not necessarily of that view, but I’m pleased to see that we have additional dollars in the budget. But my pleasure, I guess, ends because my view of how we should use that $4.6 million differs from that of the Minister and the department.

I think we need to become more efficient, we need to become more effective in how we deliver our health care system. I believe the department is starting to move in that direction, but I sense there’s a lack of coordination to a certain extent of this moving towards efficiency and effectiveness.

I want to say, and I think it’s recognized but I don’t see that we’re doing it, we have to address the root causes of our ill health. We have to address the root causes of the demands for services and I don’t think we are doing that enough. I think we’re trying, but I don’t think we have a big enough plan to address that particular issue. If we can solve all of our causes of all the issues we have in our health and social services system, our spending would be minimal. So it’s a bit of a vision, but I don’t know that that vision exists in the way the department provides programs and services.

I have questions, large questions, about funding for a number of programs under the department. They are currently funded with federal health dollars. I’m very concerned that we may be experiencing a severe drop in our revenues, therefore, inability to spend the same money we are spending now if we don’t get federal funding reinstated or substituted under a new program.

I haven’t heard much from the department about what plans they have except they are negotiating with the feds, but I’m particularly concerned about nurse practitioners. Most of our nurse practitioners are funded through federal dollars. They are a very important part of our health delivery system and I’m not so sure that we have a good plan to deal with the loss of the federal dollars when it comes down to that.

The Minister mentions that there’s $1.1 million for mental health and addictions, and that’s great. That is one of our huge causes of the drain on our system, but again, my problem is that I don’t necessarily agree that the things we are spending this $1.1 million on for mental health and addictions are necessarily the right things. I will have lots of questions when we come to that section of the budget.

One of the things that is mentioned in the Minister’s remarks is funding for school curriculum development and that’s under mental health and addictions plan. I struggle to understand how the development of a school curriculum is going to assist us with mental health and addictions. I understand the principle, but I think it’s putting the cart before the horse. I think we need to deal with the results we have on our plate before we actually try to look at something like school curriculum.

I have concerns with the number of reviews which the department is doing or has said that they were going to do. Medical travel has been mentioned already and I have the same concern. It’s been a long time coming, the results of the medical travel review. Medical travel is one of the biggest drains on our programs and services. It’s been at least a year that we have been doing this review and we have yet to see the results.

The other one is the review of the Integrated Service Delivery Model. I don’t remember when that was promised but I think that’s at least six or eight months or longer ago and I have no idea when that’s coming forward.

Midwifery has been mentioned many times and I, too, have large concerns about what we’re intending to do with the midwifery dollars. I noted the Minister in his opening remarks states, “Beginning in Hay River in the 2013-14 fiscal year, our vision is to expand midwifery services to Hay River and the Beaufort-Delta.” That sounds to me like we’re actually going to have midwives in Hay River in ’13-14. If that’s the case, then I’m extremely pleased. That is a bit of a different road than what I had understood from before. So there will be lots of questions when we come to that part of the budget. I think there’s been a commitment to a midwifery program, but there hasn’t been a commitment to actually putting feet on the ground and that’s a problem for me.

The Minister also mentioned consistent standards of service. I agree that’s an issue. We’ve also talked about governance, health authority governance and governance around the whole system. Between both governance and consistent standards of practice, they fit together. I am concerned that we had a lot of talk about governance, but I don’t really know where we’re at in terms of changing the way we govern our health and social services system and the programs and services we deliver. I don’t know that we are really clear on what governance we want, what changes we want to make and that we know what changes we should be making in order to make our governance better.

There’s a number of pieces of legislation which I think should be coming from the department and I haven’t seen any evidence of, and one of them I mentioned in some questions in the House earlier, and it has to do with the Child and Family Services Act. There’s many, many amendments required there and apparently that legislation is coming. I know legislation is very slow to get going and to prepare and to write, but there are many pieces of legislation within the health system that are outdated and need updating. I don’t know that we are working as hard as we should on those.

There’s money lacking in the budget that I’m aware of for a couple of things. I am just going to mention these. I will have questions when we come to the right part of the budget, but one of them is the Family Violence Action Plan, Phase III. We have many recommendations which would be extremely valuable and which, in my mind, would go to my stated need to address root causes of our problems, but there’s no money in the budget to address any of these 19 recommendations. There’s continuation of some things that are going on in this fiscal year, but there’s no new money there and I think that’s unfortunate. I think it’s a wrong way to go.

We have no coverage, still, under supplementary health benefits for those people who are what we have, unfortunately, called the working poor. We went through a huge review in the last Assembly and we have yet to act on providing some coverage for those people who do not have it under any one of a number of different programs that we run. There are some people who don’t have it and, in my mind, it’s a travesty that we haven’t covered them yet.

I have concerns about deficits under some of the health and social services authorities, particularly Stanton Hospital. We were supposed to, about a year ago, have a solution to provide for appropriate budgeting for Stanton and we don’t seem to be there yet, from what I’ve seen.

I’m also concerned about the lack of support for adults who need independent living accommodations. That’s a program which really isn’t on the radar, and as young people get older and become somewhat self-sufficient, they will need independent living support and I don’t believe we have anything in our budget for that.

I was pleased to see that there’s a mention about establishing a virtual call centre. In my mind, that’s moving us towards a more efficient system. That, again, has been on the radar for quite some time and this says we are taking steps towards establishing the centre. I want to know when it’s going to be established and when we are going to actually have something done.

Kudos to the department for the work they’re doing with education on the Early Childhood Development Framework. This particular project in the last several months has shown excellent cooperation between the two departments. They’ve done some excellent work. I look forward to the framework when it comes forward. I would have to say that our government would be far better off if we could have the same kind of cooperation between other departments that these two departments have exhibited in the last few months on this particular project.

I will have lots of questions, Madam Chair, when we get to specific items, but that’s all I have for opening comments. Thank you.