Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do appreciate the question raised by my honourable colleague. I think I, along with my honourable colleague, Mr. Ng, and everybody at this table understands the urgent need to find a solution to the recruitment of nurses. One part of that recruitment, and there is only one part of it, is in the compensation that that profession receives.
In our Hay Plan Job Evaluation system we recognized that was one particular profession that was underpaid and it would be our intention, assuming we can get a collective agreement signed off and get agreement on pay equity, provide the nurses with a renewed fiscal rewards for the jobs that they have. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, should we be successful in ever getting this to our membership, which I hope we will in the coming weeks, I believe community nurses salaries increase somewhere in the range of $10,000 to $12,000 on an annual basis and that is on salary alone, never mind the additional increases in northern allowance and the natural two percent increase, et cetera. It is a significant increase and I think it is only one part of the issue which Mr. Ng is trying to address, but it certainly is an issue that would enhance the take home pay of our nursing fraternity at the community level.
I think the other important issue here, and I have said this consistently and I mean it sincerely, if we get pay equity signed off it could be as much as $30,000 before tax money retroactively for nurses who have spent a long time in this part of the country. There is a concerted effort on our part to compensate people for the work in which they have performed and fortunately community based nurses get a significant increase should we be able to get the UNW to ever get this issue brought to the people to vote on it. Thank you.