Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like today to also talk about the crisis at Stanton Hospital due to the shortage of staff. Mr. Speaker, as Member for Yellowknife South has already mentioned, I do not think we need to look at numbers or status to tell us what the real problem is with respect to the shortage of staff at the hospital.

Mr. Speaker, everyone tells us that our package for wages and benefits is just not competitive, and it really does not matter what the national status is or whatever, because the result is showing by the shortage of staff.

Another thing that really, really comes up all the time is the housing shortage. I have a case here that I could tell you, and that I want to tell the Minister about that. It illustrates what a problem housing and the cost of living and the cost of housing is having on these people on making a decision to stay here.

Mr. Speaker, in the beginning of September, I had a lady come to talk to me. She is a registered nurse. She is aboriginal. She was trained here and she has worked as casual staff at the hospital for a very long time. Finally, this fall, she had a job offer to work as a permanent nurse. She is a Northerner. After much consideration, she had to turn down that job because she just could not afford to buy a house and she could not qualify for any government programs that are available because she was already making money. She just did not make enough money, even with nurses' wages, to live here. She is a Northerner. She went to the recruitment office, they dismissed her. "We can't do anything for you. Go away."

She was totally shocked, as would be any reasonable person, after all she has heard about the lack of nurses and how the government wants to attract nurses and they want to attract northern nurses. Nobody wanted to help her.

I wrote a letter to the Minister. The Minister wrote me back three weeks later saying, "We will have our compensation person call her." I talked to her yesterday and she did not hear from anybody. She heard nothing. She has left town. She said to me, "Tell the Minister if he wants me to work on a casual basis, I am ready. If he will fly me in and put me in a hotel and pay me the wages he is paying for everybody else." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

-- Applause