Thank you, colleagues, for allowing this motion to be brought forward and have your views on it. I certainly know that this motion here, as Mr. Abernethy so eloquently laid out, is going to die. This motion may die here in this Assembly but this issue is still alive and will be still alive in our communities, with our elders that come and talk to us. I have a list of people who have e-mailed me on their experience with the Medical Travel Policy. It may sound that there’s not an issue, but in our small communities and our larger centres, regional centres, it’s an issue, so I hope that our constituents are listening all across the North.
We have a communication gap, big time, with the Medical Travel Policy. I want to let them know that since 2011, four years ago, the Auditor General – the Auditor General – stated clearly, “We’ve got a problem here.” It’s only now, at the dying end of this Assembly, that the Minister is saying we’re going to fix it, be patient with us. For one thousand four hundred some-odd days we had to let people go through this and…(inaudible)…their experiences, especially the elders. Shame on this government for allowing senior people, elders…and I witnessed personally elders in our community travelling without an escort. Shame on them. Shame on them. Our most precious persons in our community.
You know what? This motion says to the government we’re not going to take it. Give some flexibility to our people in the health centre. We’re not asking them. But there should be some common sense questions, common sense questions by the health practitioners, and some of them are not always nice people. I know that.
I’m really wanting to thank the people here to look at this issue here. People have cancer. They need to have someone to look after them, to care. That’s just common sense.
I know that there are lots of dollars spent on it. But we’re in the Sahtu. We’ve got to fly. We don’t have these large centres where we can just jump in a car and go and drive over there with a bunch of family members. Come on. Build us a highway and then maybe.
But I want to say that this motion is passionate, and I want to say that I look forward to the next government and this government looking forward to seeing what we can do to change it. We’ve got to change it now. There aren’t many elders left in our regions here.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I ask for a recorded vote.