Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, again, our extended health benefits policy is the payer of last resort. So the new Pharmacare Act that's going through the federal government right now is specific to diabetic medication and to birth control. It doesn't include -- at this time, that is as far as it's expanded to. And so they would have to go through that program as we are the payer of last resort first. If they are -- like, if their condition is diabetes or if they want to access birth control. Thank you.

Thank you. Next on the list I have is the Member from Yellowknife Centre.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk on this page. And I just want to stress that the extended health benefits concern is significant to the riding. And it's a little bit of divide and conquer that FMB may have been preaching or pushing this perspective for some time saying well, you need to do this this way and this this way and based on these types of fairness calculations. But who really decides what's fair and reasonable is us, really. And I mean when we're struggling to keep people here and a reason to stay here, I mean, folks are now being paid more whether they're in Alberta or BC and, you know, they're reluctant of wanting to stay every day becomes a different type of factor, and it's frustrating. The divide and conquer concern is by now extending it to seniors, which I'm happy, just for the record, that they're not at risk, but what it is is it finds a way to continue to marginalize the opposition to this and -- by saying that, well, it only now affects a small group and we're going to be income testing them and doing this and doing that. And, you know, it's just -- you know, there was a time that the NWT was certainly the place to be, whether it was for experience, whether it was for money in the sense of employment, whether it was for opportunities, adventure. And there were many stories have been written, that I've heard throughout my life here, and how exciting it is when you hear about saying why are people here? Well, you know, I came on a whim and I stayed, and I created a family. And so that's very important. And I think these types of changes put this at risk.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I'm being very serious but in the same token not. You know, like I'm prepared to do what we need to do to reverse this. I'm not prepared to do a hunger strike but I am willing to be serious if necessary. But we need to find a way to revisit this. And it's frustrating, and it's upsetting. And those who now are on the screening list, you know, there's so little money garnered by pushing the income test. It's just -- it becomes one more frustration. And I know there wasn't anyone on the campaign trail that brought us here in the swell of support that each one of us shares that didn't hear something to the effect of cost of living is frustrating. And now we're just finding new groups to pay more. And that's really what the issue is, is that new groups are paying more. And they weren't defined before but we're certainly defining them now, and we're defining them to raise more money. And I get it, we need money. But I think it's about choices. And maybe the issue I want to stress on this is the fact that sometimes we have to think things through fundamentals. And I know vote one money isn't the same as vote two. But when you talk to somebody at their door and I tell them that, you know, like oh, we need $10 million more for one program, what that really boils down to is it's about less than 4 kilometers of highway. And it really stings when you think about that. You know, what are we willing to do to collectively support people? You know, I mean, I'm sure everyone would give up an extra couple kilometers of chip seal. I know no one wants to give up their chip seal. But that said, when we think about it collectively well, we'll give up a little bit more and work together to get the ends in. And I'll tell you, there's very little as important out there when you -- especially as you get older -- now, I mean, I'm looking in this room and I'm seeing a lot of, I'll say, less young people, and nothing becomes more relevant than health as time goes on. And then you learn that health and family go hand in hand. And health is very important. And I don't want people to put their health at risk over 1 kilometer or 2 kilometers of chip seal, whether it means we upgrade the -- you know, the housing trucks this year and we push them back a year, or the infrastructure car, or whatever. I mean, the point is we can always find a way. We just have to want to be willing to collectively be responsible for that way. And so I'm not sure what the right approach is, but -- although currently a hunger strike is off the table, but I'm not going to say it won't be if we need to be serious about this. And this really affects lives. This scares people. And I think, you know, that's got to shake at the core of the business we do. And so I wish we were, as Members -- unfortunately Members are in the position of deletion, not addition, and that's the process of how our -- well, all these legislative systems work, so. But, I mean, we must revisit this. And waiting a year for a promise that we'll revisit it and whatnot, I think that that's too late. You know, whether -- I've heard the saying a long time ago, and it's one of my favorite sayings, and I'll end on this point, is that, you know, you cannot unring a bell. And that's what this is. It's a ringing of a bell, and it sets the tone, and it's impossible to undo. So you can change the program back all you want, and that would be great, but the truth is that once it's changed it sends that message, and that's -- that'll resonate with people.

So, Mr. Chairman, I'm just going to leave it at that. I just wanted to speak to the particular page. I appreciate the opportunity to do that. And I can't emphasize enough this decision has to be revisited, you know, for the sake of the many, not just the few. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I'll take that as a comment. Next on my list here is the Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I -- I'm going to try and come at this from a slightly different angle just so we're not belabouring the point too badly on extended health benefits. But I wanted to ask specifically about the northern market basket measure and the switch to using this as kind of a determined -- the ceiling under which people would be covered or would have to kind of cover some of the costs themselves, increasing on a sliding scale from there. So I'd just like to hear from the department the appropriateness of using the basket measure. I know that the NWT has its own that it's kind of developed based on the federal one. I actually asked the developers of the federal one by e-mail last week about whether the basket measure was intended to be used to determine program eligibility for programs such as this, and they were very clear that it was not developed to be used as a tool for that. Still in the process of putting together a written question on that question specifically. But I was just hoping to get some commentary from the department on, you know, why that's been determined as the appropriate tool to determine eligibility for this program? Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I mentioned, this extended health policy has been reviewed. I know that there was -- in the last government, it went back out to review because of a lot of the concerns. There was recommendations to make changes. Those changes were made. How we use this -- you know, what tool we use to measure low income, you know, there is a jurisdictional scan across Canada on how other jurisdictions provide any type of support to low income, and -- you know, and some of the -- you know, and I know we provided information to committee on this. There's been many presentations. There's -- you know, like there were provided on this topic. And right now where we're at is that -- that is why there's so many different layers of this. And so there -- until you hit -- I think it is about -- and I'll take example for Yellowknife. Until you hit a net take home of $60,000 -- and that's a single person -- you don't have to pay a deductible for your pharmacy but you may have to pay up to $400 a month. And that's the maximum that you may pay over the year. So that -- you know, and that's for any prescriptions. The maximum that they might have to pay for medical supplies in that group is $500 a year for their medical supplies. Anything after that, it's covered by -- it doesn't matter what it is, it's covered by the Northwest Territories. And so the low income is set there to ensure that the low income people have access to all of those, as well as that is the line where the dental and the vision is also eligible in that group. You know, and whether that's the tool to use, I know that the Minister -- that Minister Cleveland has the same tool in income support. And so what we're trying to use is we're trying to streamline. And I know that that's a conversation that we've all had is trying to use the same tool where we're measuring all our programs that we're income testing that we're using the same tool across the GNWT. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to go back to the Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, really, not to repeat comments made by other Members, but I think, you know, the problem that I'm seeing is I still have constituents who seem confused about what's happening. The department has produced kind of a calculator, but there still seems to be some confusion about kind of what their benefits are going to be. So anything the department can do to kind of improve comms on this would be appreciated. But, you know, I can just say for the record as it currently stands as it's been presented, I'm not in agreement with the changes that are being made. I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Is there any further questions from Members? I don't see any. I'll continue on.

No further questions, please turn to page 215. Health and Social Services, supplementary health benefits, operations expenditure summary, 2024-2025 Main Estimates, $35,321,000. Does the committee agree?

Okay, Member from Range Lake, we're talking about what I just spoke on, correct? Okay, all right, you've got ten minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So we are on supplementary health benefits? Yes, okay.

So the Minister has seen the AOC report calling for a pause to income testing this program. And I believe -- that's, I think, enough to understand the disposition of the House -- or this side of the House on that initiative.

Should that income testing be paused, what would that do to the appropriation for supplementary health benefits? Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you. At this time, there's no -- I mean, the program is set to go live September 1st, Mr. Chair. And next month, they'll be opening up the process for people to start applying through the program. And then, you know, those questions that are out there that what their eligibility, what the questions, how much, you know, it might cost individual members, that's why we're opening up the application process earlier on. But as this time, the program is going to change because if it doesn't, then there's 2,200 people that are still in the Northwest Territories that are not getting any services under this current policy. And so that's why, you know, nobody seems to be thinking about those 2,200 people. If we don't change the policy to include those, right now the policy is disease based. So thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, let's talk about what we're talking about. We're not talking about stopping the change to the beneficiaries. We're talking about scrapping the income testing. That's the issue that has been raised, or that's the request. It's not an all or nothing. If it was all or nothing, we would just delete this and the government would have to come up with a new proposal. So how would that affect this appropriation? If we scrap income testing, we add the 2200 people the Minister spoke of because I think those -- I firmly believe those people need care -- or need access to these benefits, and I support that part of the change. So if we add those people and make no other changes, does -- what -- what is the financial cost to government to do so? Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go back to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will pass that over to the ADM.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the ADM.

Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Range Lake.

Just a -- thank you. I appreciate having that kind of cost accounting. So just to be clear on the shortfall, so if it's costing us $2.5 million to bring new beneficiaries on board and the income testing is going to generate $1.2 million, is the shortfall not $1.3 million, then, because of the new revenues coming into the program? Thank you.