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Bill 42 - Health Governance Transition Act

November 6, 2008 - Committee of the Whole

Ms Blakeman: Well, thanks, and thanks very much for the minister’s willingness to be here and do a back-and-forth in answering the questions.

A couple of things I want to follow up on from what he just raised. Thank you for the clarification on the Mental Health Board, that it wasn’t created through legislation but through regs. One of the things I’ve noticed is that these regs sort of slide out. Is the minister able to give us any kind of notification so that we know it’s coming?

For example, last night fairly late in the day there was an order in council that was changing the FOIP Act. It kind of slid out at around, I don’t know, 4:30 in the afternoon – well, that’s when it gets published – not the time that most people are alive to it and watching for it, admittedly. With the change in regulation that’s going to need to happen around the Mental Health Board, could we get some kind of upfront notification from the minister to watch for it or to expect it that day? That’s just a courtesy I’m asking for. He doesn’t have to do it, clearly.

My biggest concerns around this bill were the effects of what’s happening to cancer and research and the assets and a number of other things but, more specifically, what was happening to my constituents, who I’ve already heard from, and the uncertainty about their employment. I don’t know what the minister’s background is or if he’s ever been in a situation where everything around him is changing in his job and nobody can tell you what’s happening.

Saying things like, “Don’t worry” is not helpful to people. They don’t know if the bad news is being held back to the last day and therefore they should make other decisions in their life right away or if, in fact, things are going to be different but basically equal. It causes enormous upheaval and stress, and of course that affects your productivity. We have lesser productivity, I would argue, out of employees that really don’t know what’s going to happen.

AADAC is one of those places where people – I mean, there are a million rumours, some of which I’m sure would enrage the minister and some which would amuse him, what I’ve heard so far on what’s happening to AADAC. But the employment status is obviously a big one to employees. My question is: who decides that another job is substantially similar and that therefore the employee would not be entitled to either severance pay or termination pay or other compensation? If you could give us an understanding of who would actually make that determination.

If I’m a counsellor 4 for AADAC and I will now be shifted to Justice and delivering that same counselling on addictions but I’ll be doing it under the Justice department but they call it an adviser 3 and there is a different pay range there, what happens? Who decides that that’s actually the same job? Or is it going to be automatic that I’m going to get paid the same amount of money doing the other one as I was doing this one even though it’s got a different classification? That’s what’s really worrying people here.

Okay. The next piece that the minister talked about was the concept of a line model and policy model. I’m going to take it that the minister was in some kind of management organizational behaviour in his previous life because this is the kind of stuff they entertain themselves with by thinking about. I take it that he is in favour of this particular model and is looking at putting all similar line systems together, which are the delivery systems he’s talking about.

For AADAC in particular where is he expecting to house that line delivery of programs with other similar service delivery programs? In other words, can he tell me that those services, that all sort of addictions treatment, are going to go to Justice and that the alcohol is going to go to Solicitor General? Can you tell me where these sections are going? What I’ve heard is that AADAC is going to be essentially broken up into two or three pieces and that those pieces are going to be moved in their entirety under a different department.

Well, he’s shaking his head. That’s okay. That’s why we’re here, to ask the questions so that we’ll get the answer. If it’s not going to go somewhere else, what is going to happen with it? Who runs this? Does it stay in the same office building with the same phone number but is run by the superboard? It shouldn’t be because the superboard should be the policy side of what he’s talking about. Well, then, who’s doing the policy? Is the department doing the policy, and the delivery system is being operated by the superboard? I’ll look for him to clarify some of that.

I know that this minister believes in what he’s doing, and he has a very strong ideology that supports that. He’s just not sharing it with the rest of us, so I’m coaxing it out of him little bit by little bit. But it would help if other people had an understanding of where this was going. It would alleviate a lot of the fear that people have and the push back that they do when they don’t understand what’s happening to them and things are being manipulated above them by some omnipresent being, which in this case is the minister. So I’m going to try and pull that information out of him. Where exactly is AADAC going? Where will those services be delivered from? You know, in walking around downtown, I’m lucky enough to have a number of AADAC delivery service outlets in my riding. Are they going to stay in the same place, or do they all get moved somewhere else? Do they get moved to the Capital health building, that has now been purchased through Capital health by this government, on 107th just off Jasper? So just some very straightforward questions there.

I also want to ask the minister about the interrelationship with Bill 31 because it was repealing section 82 of the Financial Administration Act. The sections that I was pointing out there and that I raised in that particular debate I believe pertain to this minister and what he’s doing here in two sections. In 82(9)(b):

That any undistributed gifts, bequests or donations to the Provincial agency are to be administered by a successor organization or the Crown for the same purpose for which the Provincial agency was established.

I’d like confirmation that that is what will happen with the cancer related gifts, bequests, and donations and anything with AADAC. The other piece there was the liabilities. Sorry. I’m not going to be able to pull this out just from memory. There was a liability section, again in Bill 31, which is the Financial Administration Amendment Act, 2008, which was talking about: any liabilities – in other words, like lawsuits – that were against a particular agency would be essentially suspended once the agency was under a sunset clause or was dissolved. Now, we’re looking at two agencies being dissolved here. What happens to their liabilities?

The next question, related: what happens to their assets? For example, what happens to the assets from the Cancer Board? We have facilities in Edmonton and Calgary. I’ve already asked the previous question related to the repealing of section 82, which was about bequests.

In this act, under section 3, winding-up orders. Well, I’m looking in particular under section 3(2), that an order may contain provisions the minister considers necessary to protect the interests of creditors. If you could expand on exactly what it is you anticipate there because I’m seeing that as also coming into play under the repeal of section 82. My concern with the repeal of 82 under the Financial Administration Act was that we lost those protections and the specifics of how that process was to work.

Now I see this coming into play. What I see from you, Mr. Minister, is a series of beads on a necklace that are all working along and adding up. That may be all right, but it also may not be. I see them as interrelating. I wouldn’t normally ask one minister to comment on something that’s happened in a different bill under a different ministry, but these are clearly interrelated because the one is talking about what happens when you dissolve an agency, and now we have two agencies being dissolved.

If I can start with that, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Minister, I’d appreciate a response if you’re able to give it at this time.