Mr. Speaker, if I may be so bold, we have a great deal of other employees besides teachers and nurses and while both of these professions play an important and critical role in the delivery of services to our people, so do a variety of other people who work for this government. When we negotiate an arrangement, we try to negotiate an arrangement that is fair and equitable to everybody. We do not isolate out, if you want, particularly in the nursing fraternity which is part of the UNW collective agreement. The NWTTA has its own association which represents its interests and we deal with them separately.

It is recognized in the nursing and medical fraternity by my colleague, Mr. Ng, and my other colleagues, that there is a problem. It is important to point out that this problem, as my honourable colleague from Iqaluit indicated, is not just in the territorial jurisdiction. Recently I was at the Finance Ministers meeting in Winnipeg two weeks ago and every other jurisdiction in Canada is having difficulty retaining professionals in the medical field. I cannot tell you today, why I am not qualified to do that, but clearly, there is recognition in this government, as Mr. Ng has indicated in an earlier response to questions, which is making a concerted effort through his retention plan in trying to solve some of those problems.