Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier this year, along with my colleague, we had concerns about the health care card renewal system and the way the process is going. We continue to get these concerns from constituents, and we’ve also heard from our colleagues throughout the Northwest Territories that this continues to be an issue.

We are getting examples of people that are asked to apply three months before the expiry of their birthdate, and those cards are expiring without getting renewals or even notification that they’ve been renewed and updated. The department, when we’ve asked them about this, have given us several different examples or excuses and also have indicated that, well, worst-case scenario, have them pay for it and we can pay them back later.

I don’t know how we can ask that from our residents when they don’t have the confidence in us renewing their health care cards, never mind us paying them back thousands of dollars.

I’m not here to complain about the staff or take any shots at the staff that are implementing this health care. My concerns are how it was implemented. Residents are getting applications mailed back to them several times. These applications are missing a certain piece of information and instead of phoning them and getting back to them right away, it’s mailed back to them, asking for them to give the information and then send it back through the mail system. Very slow. No wonder we’re not getting them approved in time.

Also, residents are calling the 1-800 number and the mailboxes are full. Obviously, we don’t have enough manpower on this issue.

I would also like to take the time to thank the medical clinics, the health centres, the pharmacies that have been helping our residents to fill out these applications and get things done. We’re not halfway done through the year and this process still hasn’t been solved. I think we need to put more resources to a solution to this, and if we need to put more resources to it, I would recommend we put some of it into an insurance type of program for the South Slave, and obviously, I would be supportive of it being in Hay River.

I will have questions for the Minister of Health later on today.