Thank you. Minister Todd.

Yes, I believe the Minister recognizes, as the House has talked about on a number of occasions, the difficulties we are under in retaining medical professionals. The intent here is this to be ongoing expenditures, east and west. It would be all part and parcel of the business planning process, which you will be addressing in the next two or three weeks. Correct.

Administration, Mr. Steen.

Yes. Mr. Todd.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well we will vote these funds today and I suppose, in retrospect, we should have been at this thing a lot sooner, but that is just the way life goes. Mr. Ng will do his best to get up and running along with his staff, all the aspects of the program as he laid out in the documents he tabled earlier in the year. In keeping with the business plans you will do for the west, through the Western Caucus, the retention program will be in there. I am assuming there will also be a retention program in there for the east. That would certainly be the intent.

Thank you. Administration, not previously authorized. I have Mr. Krutko.

Thank you. Mr. Todd.

The intent, I believe, and I do not want to speak on behalf of the Minister, but my understanding of the situation, reading the file, is you are going to have a centralized pool of resources, that as a community requires it, whether it is an emergency or just in respect to additional support that is required; if there are some problems, they would go to this pool and pull upon the resources there. It is not being designed for one particular community because the issue of shortages of medical health care workers is right across the territories. As I said earlier to some questions this week or last week, it is right across the country.

Thank you. That is depending upon the situation, I suppose. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you. On the primary plan, Mr. Todd.

Mr. Speaker, I will let the Minister speak to the detail, but let me once again draw, this is a very serious issue. There are broad-based problems out there, no matter what community you are in. The Minister is trying, through this recruitment and retention plan, to provide a centralized pool of expertise that all communities can pull on when required. It is that simple. We have got to treat this thing seriously. I will ask the Minister to maybe add to my initial comments.

Thank you. Mr. Minister would you elaborate further? Mr. Ng.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, if the honourable Member is speaking in respect to the locum relief pool, that is exactly what the Minister of Finance has outlined, in respect of there is no targeted community where those individuals are going to go. It is going to be on an as-required basis and determined by health care professionals. It certainly not going to be a political exercise of, well this community needs it more than this one. A decision will be made by health care professionals where the needs are, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you. Administration, not previously authorized. I have Mr. Erasmus.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This recruitment and retention plan. We have heard a lot about the problems that are occurring in the smaller communities. It is not only the smaller communities that are feeling the effects of the nursing crisis across Canada. The larger communities are also losing nurses from what I understand. They are also experiencing shortages. Will these funds that are being asked be put into place to assist the larger communities, the hospitals as well so they can retain and recruit nurses as needed? Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Ng.

Thank you. We all indicated we have near to a crisis situation here and money is being appropriated, so I do not know. Administration not previously authorized, $2.386 million. Mr. O'Brien.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I agree with Mr. Steen in reference to the dollars that are being allocated now put forward to improve our health care. I agree 100 percent. It is long overdue. I am just curious, and my question would be at this point, where we now have allocated and found some money to put toward the problem, given the fact that for the last few years our health care situation has been almost in a death spiral, why is it that we had to wait this long, could we have not done it sooner?

Thank you. Mr. Todd.

We would all like to have done a whole bunch of things sooner, whether it is in health care or whether it is in teacher education, et cetera. The reality is we have been living for some time now with severe fiscal limitations and that is really, to some extent, what it boils down to. We have found some money, as I said in committee earlier today, that we think is targeted in the right areas, and hopefully we will be able to come about and bring the kind of stability that the Minister and the Members are looking for.

I am also, as I said in committee, hopeful, and I say hopeful, that the federal Finance Minister will in his budget in February allocate some money to health care and, if he does, then hopefully we will be the beneficiary of that. I think that is really the reason behind it, but even in these difficult times, there is some reason for optimism. As I have said, we have found these dollars as difficult as it is, and I am optimistic that we may see some additional dollars coming into the federal budget in February. If that is the case, then I am sure my colleague, Mr. Ng, is working hard to convince his federal counterpart that the territory should get their share. Thank you.