Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to use the opportunity here to return to a subject I’ve raised in this House before and it’s the health care card issue.
In the past I’ve raised with the Health Minister, more accurately the former Health Minister, about the need to move towards photo ID cards. As many of us will remember, and certainly want to forget, the last health care card renewal was no thrill with any standard we should be looking back to as a benchmark. So we should use this opportunity to be planning forward with better health care cards.
The recent issue of cards, I believe, are good for about three years. That would certainly give us substantial time to proceed at a very smart and strategic way to copy other jurisdictions such as Ontario and even British Columbia.
A photo health care card comes with many incredible advantages, security certainly being the first. We have to recall that many photo cards can carry substantial basic information such as things like bar codes that show valid information, indicate a person’s wishes if they choose to be an organ donor. They even have a person’s signature on these.
Of course, in talking to seniors, they will all tell you a health care card is just like gold. Nothing is more important than your health care opportunities,
because the NWT’s health care system is second to none, so it must be protected.
There are opportunities here to proceed in a manner that makes a lot of sense, and in some ways it could eliminate our general I.D. card. Now, we could find ways to work this out for those who can’t show up and have their photos taken, but there are many opportunities that could help here. We could blend this nicely with our Electronic Health Record system. Regardless of what language you carry, there could be a bar code on the back and they can scan it and know everything they need to know about you.
A photo health care card issued to our residents proves that they are residents, because they have the picture to match who they are, and if they’re done under a secure situation, just like our driver’s licence, we could ensure that all residents can have them.
May I remind you it was only a few short weeks ago we were listening to the federal government talk about taking voting opportunities away from our citizens because they didn’t have photo I.D. The opportunities of photo health care cards are endless, and now is an opportunity.
Let me finish with this. A few years ago we had found that we had over 4,000 extra health care cards. This would give us a great chance to audit them properly and ensure that when we are giving health care to our citizens and supporting them in the way that they are meant to be supported, we can guarantee that they are who they are.