Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’m rising today and I will be supporting the motion. I think the intent of the motion is, look, we’ve got an issue here. We’d like to address some of it, and for me, it’s about long-term stays. It’s about emergencies, and often some of the emergencies that I see are that the escorts coming here with the medical client, they’re expected to be two days, but they find more health issues and they actually end up in Edmonton for weeks at a time and the escort is travelling with them ill prepared. It’s often the family member, a cousin, that the only reason he’s going is because he’s in between work and he’s got no income, and then he’s in Yellowknife and/or Edmonton for weeks at a time with little or no income at all.
I certainly do see a need. I don’t know if it’s paying them. I don’t believe it’s income, but I think we have, when you’re an employee for the government, you do have a little bit of incidentals that they use for travelling. I think it’s something like that that’s important for them, because when
they’re down, they want to buy toothpaste, hair brushes, if there’s enough there. It’s just other personal items that they may need. For me, it’s not about paying them. For me, it’s about there’s an issue here. We’ve got people that travel long ways and they’re not ready for it. They don’t have enough income.
As well as I think it is a timely motion because we are reviewing medical travel and perhaps there can be a new category developed and I think that’s all the motion asked for, is let’s devise another system. There’s a gap here that’s being raised by Mr. Yakeleya and Mr. Blake with their motion and I see that gap too. I see it in my work as an MLA. A lot of our medical travel, as well, is from our employees and escorts, but that’s a totally different thing that I see from our elders and our people that are not a government employee that are travelling. Most often it’s cousins because they’re speaking the language and they’re travelling with them to explain what exactly is happening and they’re often stuck for weeks at a time. I see a gap there. With that, once again, I will be supporting the motion.