Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If centralizing means we are bringing people into the centre, then we are not centralizing. I can get

the deputy minister to provide details and timelines. The plan is to have the services standard with all the authorities using the same system. I will have the deputy do a detailed response to that.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Ms. DeLancey.

Thank you, Ms. DeLancey. Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks to Ms. DeLancey for the explanation. I appreciate that it’s a long-term objective to get this done, and it is going to take a lot of time before it does happen. It sounds as though the changes that are being instituted this next fiscal year are coming from within or ones that are happening right now. Are we going to be looking at an increase in the budget after the fiscal year 2013-2014 in order to get some of these things done, or will all the changes be handled from within?

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’re not anticipating any increase in the budget. It just would be a reallocation of the same money.

One last question. It has to do with the administration of supplementary health benefits, which I understand is done on this page. I’ve said this before, there was quite an involved investigation, consideration. There was a joint working group that looked at the administration of our supplementary health benefits, and there were a number of recommendations that came out of it. Some of them have been implemented, and I think they were changes to the good.

But we still have a certain segment of our population which has no supplementary health benefits coverage. I would like to know from the Minister – there is obviously no money in this budget to cover what have, unfortunately, been called the working poor; it’s not a lot of people – if there’s no money in this budget to cover this segment of our population, will there be money in the 2014-2015 budget, and how much does the department estimate that it will cost?

It is not in this year’s budget, this year’s mains. We had not anticipated putting it into the 2014-2015 mains at this time. We don’t know what the cost of that would be at this time.

I guess I would request the department to provide that information to committee if they would.

We can do that.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Page 8-17. I have Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. We’re just going to distribute this motion, so just give us a second.

A motion is on the floor. To the motion. Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I’ve indicated in statements today, I think it’s something very important that we implement sooner than later. I’m quite confident the department can implement this sooner than later. I’m very comfortable with the Minister. I made this motion so that we implement this sooner than later, and it

moves everybody’s midwifery programs ahead by a year.

To the motion.

Question is being called.

---Carried

Page 8-17, Health and Social Services, activity summary, program delivery support, operations expenditure summary, $40.686 million.

Page 8-18, Health and Social Services, activity summary, program delivery support, grants and contributions. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under grants and contributions there, we have professional development recruitment and retention in the range of $2.7 million. I’m just wondering what exactly that is and if we can get some breakdown to help me understand it or appreciate where the money is going. It just seems like a lot of money that we continually book off almost $3 million for professional development. Why is it covered under this area, why wouldn’t it be a human resource queue of some sort? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. For that we’ll got to Ms. DeLancey.