A couple of things. Your income doesn’t really affect your ability to access government funded long-term care facilities in the Northwest Territories, or extended care. So it doesn’t matter if you make a ton of money or have no money, it’s based on need. So I’m not sure I understand that particular question. Hopefully the Member will be able to help me understand where he’s going with that.
On the other side, there is nothing stopping a private business from opening up a long-term care facility and charging whatever they feel an appropriate market rent or market fee would be to do that. There’s nothing stopping anybody from doing that. Having said that, I absolutely acknowledge that there aren’t any, which means there may be some barrier out there to dissuade some individuals who are interested in opening a privately run long-term care facility with no government money.
As part
of the review that I’ve asked to be done, I’ve
asked them to do some analysis around that component, as well, to see whether or not some policy changes are required to help create some incentive or remove potential restrictions or barriers that private enterprise might see for opening up and running their own private long-term care facilities and charging whatever they feel is a reasonable market price. So, that is to be included in the review so that if there are barriers, we can find a way to work with private enterprise to create some economic opportunities and see some additional non-government funded beds here in the Northwest Territories.