Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Would the Minister like to respond?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the comment, and I agree. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is on page 199. I note that there is a contribution, there was contribution, funding to the NWT Metis Nation that has since been eliminated. Can the Minister provide some details on what that funding was for and why we're not seeing it this budget? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, that money was for a pilot study, the use of a system navigator for Metis. The pilot concluded, and we didn't continue the funding.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Testart.

With the with new benefits we spoke of earlier in this review on Metis health benefits and the possible role of the federal government, is it likely we'll need something like this again? Or are there any lessons learned that can help shape our policies moving forward? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We did get a report from the Metis on this. There were some benefits, but we had to do a value of money analysis on it, the number of clients that were being served. We have a system navigator in the Northwest Territories that does the same type of service or provides the same type of service as this was doing for a select population. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. Mr. Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In regards to this HSS authority funding of $22,761,000, is this actually medical travel costs? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Thompson.

Thank you. Now I know I'm on the right page. In regards to medical travel, we have different travel for government staff and other people, outside. Is there a rationale for this switch and it's not in these mains or part of this business plan? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the medical travel benefits that are provided to GNWT employees, by way of example, are a negotiated benefit to our employees. It determines what they'd get for per diems. They arrange for airfare, accommodations, et cetera, et cetera. We don't pay those as a Department of Health and Social Services. Those are borne by the Government of the Northwest Territories. I believe it's through the Department of Finance and accounted for in the Department of Finance.

These costs are the costs that we're spending on medical travel for individuals who don't have third-party insurance or other coverage. If we were to actually, you know, quantify what the true costs of medical travel costs for residents or for the GNWT is, you would have to factor in what's being spent through Finance on GNWT employees and others.

We do have some sense of that number. The $22.7 million you see here is what we provide through the health system. This $13.6 million is from other revenue, including federal NIHB funds, so they do cover some of the medical travel costs. $1.7 million is funded from the Federal Territorial Health Investment Fund, the THIF and $1.3 million is from supplementary funding, the 2015-16, to mitigate some program shortfalls. Then there's also the GNWT medical travel costs, as well, for GNWT employees. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the Minister for that answer. So as you heard in my Member's statement and you probably hear this all the time, there seems to be some challenges of working when people are on travel. Is there a rationale why they don't-- you don't work with the patients if they're travelling down there or down for business, and if the medical travel has been appointed? Is there a rationale for not working with them to-- instead of having to make them come back and then fly down? To me, again, it's about cost savings. So I'm trying to figure out the rationale for why we don't do that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Mr. Minister?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. A lot of the medical travel challenges that we're facing, those are the things that we're trying to address through the medical travel review that we talked about earlier today, and we're trying to have a more compassionate system but we also have to have a more logical system, which means we have to recognize some of the cost savings that are out there.

Having said that, we also do have some liability issues. Individuals travelling on our behalf or when we're actually responsible for their travel we have to provide insurance. If someone was to go down for another reason it gets a little convoluted about the insurance and the coverage. Those are the types of things that we're trying to work out during our review of medical travel; trying to make it a little bit more common sense as opposed to some of the things we see today. Insurance and liability. Thank you, Mr. Chair.