Just over a week after unveiling some of the members involved in the territory’s health care review, the government was grilled in the legislature Thursday about costs that were not previously mentioned.

Those costs include the ones linked to at least two other groups involved in the comprehensive review, documents provided by the party showed.

That runs the total to as high as $2 million.

Previously, Health and Social Services Minister Pauline Frost had referenced a cost of about $665,000. That, however, is an expense more reflective of just one component (the advisory panel).

That number is captured in the “review costs,” an estimate on the document shows.

But additional in-kind costs, which are to be absorbed by the department, range from $1.2 million to $1.5 million.

Those are for at least two other groups involved in the review: the steering committee and tiger team.

Speaking with reporters shortly after question period Thursday, Frost did not directly dispute the numbers and offered clarification.

The Yukon NDP obtained the governance model for the comprehensive review (dated May 2018).

MLA Kate White pointed out that the tiger team and steering committee were made up of representatives already within the department, among others.

For clarity: the extra cost not previously referenced is made up to capture the cost of the steering committee and tiger team.

The $665,000, mentioned by Frost on multiple occasions, is reflective of only the review costs – which she reiterated Thursday will capture the advisory panel already mentioned.

“The staff that are preexisting within the government are defined within their respective costs captured (in the budget) under O(perations) and M(anagement) expenditures for various departments,” she explained of the additional departmental costs.

“The in-kind contribution from within HSS is just that – they are staff that pre-exist in the department.”

White and NDP Leader Liz Hanson pressed on, suggesting there has been a lack of transparency about the grand total cost of the review.

“I think what we’re trying to do right here is establish the full cost of the full health care review,” White said.

Frost responded that “the team that already exists within Health and Social Services is conducting the work within the confines of their existing jobs,” and its costs are already captured in the earlier budget.

Frost was later asked what the cost of the steering committee and tiger team would be.

Because it was made up of existing staff within HSS, she said, it “is covered out of the existing budget, and is something that we have not equated for in an expert assessment.”

Meanwhile, documents provided by the NDP show that the review costs range from $554,000 to $664,800.

Because Frost stated publicly the number is closer to the latter, the party suspects the additional costs to the department will be on the higher end of the spectrum as well, at $1.5 million.

In short: that would bring the total estimated cost (including departmental and review costs) to about $1.8 million to $2.1 million.

But that’s still a far cry from the $665,000 figure provided earlier, the New Democrats said.

For her part, Frost explained that the tiger team is made of existing HSS staff including senior advisors and “policy folks that provide direction with respect to work that’s already been conducted.

“We’re not going to duplicate efforts – we have a very short timeline to get this turned around,” she said, referencing the fall 2019 date by which the government has committed to wrapping up the review.

Part of that work may include the more than a dozen reports within HSS issued over the last decade or so – which White and Hanson tabled individually in the legislature earlier in the day.

See letter.