Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Previously in this House, we had a very strong commitment from the former Minister of Health and Social Services that there was some significant interest in following up on this and establishing a position.

I just wanted to know if the current Minister maintains that position. Is he a strong supporter of the development of a child advocate's position within the Northwest Territories and will he be looking at ways to move the process along in establishing that position? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I like Mr. Dent's position. I think it has value and merit. I am interested to see how we can in fact make it a reality and in what shape that particular reality would take. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is the only issue I wanted to follow up on right now, thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question is regarding the community health programs that the Minister mentioned. As we all know, in the last number of years, because of the stress on the system, especially in the Inuvik region where we actually had to have closures to our community health centres, in which, because of the lack of or shortage of nurses in our communities, I would like to ask the Minister a question.

What are you doing to ensure we have a system where we do not have the problems we have seen in the last number of years? It just seemed to be a regular occurrence in the last couple of years. We are seeing our health centres being closed down in our communities at certain times of the year. What are you doing to improve that?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we are undertaking a number of initiatives, both broader ones and more immediate ones. Recruitment and retention has been identified by all the authorities as well as the department as the number one priority.

We are working to access a nurse locum pool. All of the authorities in the department agree that we have to work more effectively together in terms of recruiting nurses and retaining them.

We are working right now in the action plan and with the task groups to see in fact how we can do that more effectively. We have engaged in conversations and the involvement of the nursing association, as well as the doctors. We hope to be making some progress here.

We are also having a whole number -- dozens, I believe it is almost 70 nursing students -- who are currently in the system and we are looking at making all of the necessary arrangements to make sure that they stay in the North and fill these critical positions. So we have a number of initiatives underway. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The other area that I have concerns about is the lack of capacity in our communities to deal with the social issues, in light of the economic activity that is going on in our regions. We realize that there will be social implications in relation to that activity, especially in the area of alcohol and drugs, people who get into trouble with the law.

Elsewhere, we have seen the boom/bust scenario of the 70's. I would like to ask the Minister what he is doing to assist communities to deal with the social issues around economic development in our communities?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, that particular issue has been singularly identified within the action plan. The socio-economic impact of major resource development is recognized as having the kind of impact that Mr. Krutko mentioned.

We currently have a working group established within the Government of the Northwest Territories and we are going to be involving the federal government and we want to work with the aboriginal governments. I have also committed to Mr. Krutko and others that I am going to be going into the communities as well to see specifically and first hand what the concerns are.

The intent is to develop a process and a way to identify what those issues are and, on a project-by-project basis, come up with a plan that we can bring forward funds so that impacted communities can help mediate some of the negative impact of that kind of development. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, on this particular matter, development has already occurred. It is in full swing. I think that, if anything, we are playing catch-up here. I do not think that we have the time to allow for this thing to go out to another committee or another special committee to travel around and try to find solutions to the problems.

The people in the communities know what the problems are, they know where the inequities are, and we know where the capacity has to be developed. Fort McPherson has developed a capacity development proposal and they have done a lot of work in that area. They are looking at focussing in other areas, not just the Government of the Northwest Territories. We are also looking at the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. We are looking through Brighter Futures and other funding sources out there. We cannot wait. We do not have the time to allow for what happened in the 70's and 80's to repeat itself.

In the communities I represent, we have had a lot of suicides since the last major boom. We have seen a lot of disparity to families, to people in our communities. I think as a government, we cannot continue to hesitate or even consider trying to reinvent the wheel here. We know what the issues are. We know how to deal with them. I think we have to start putting the resources where they are needed and not look at doing another major plan.

I would like to ask the Minister, where will the communities be able to fit into this process who may be in the situation where they have already started the legwork by developing plans and identifying resource people and identifying the areas of capacity that are needed to deal and cope with the stress and strain in our communities, and also the effects that we see from development?

Can the Minister tell me how soon this will take place and how do the communities fit into that process?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, there are a couple of areas I would like to quickly touch on. As I indicated in my previous comments, steps are being taken to bring the departments to the table within government to put some special attention and focus on this particular issue.

As well, we already have in place in the regions and communities fairly extensive health and social services systems. It is the intent to use the systems that are there, the authorities that are there, the representatives that are there, along with the community leadership to identify not only the issues but the type of project that is determined to be best suited to meet some of those needs, at which point we will be doing this in a whole number of communities. We have to pull together the cost and then we have to go forward with an attempt to get the funding necessary to make these particular projects a reality.

The commitment is there in the action plan to do that. I agree with the Member. This is not a time for, as he said, reinventing the wheel, or taking months and months of study. We know that we are running late and it is not just oil and gas. We have the affected areas in the North Slave and other areas where there is resource development possibly pending.

This is a job that needs to get done and we do not have time to waste, as the Member indicated. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Krutko.

One of the other areas that I feel this department has to look at is the whole area of identifying the inequities between what resource people in communities are being paid by way of salaries and benefits. Also, the community programs that are presently being carried out by the band council for mental health workers, social workers, alcohol and drug workers, that we have to bring them in line with the rest of the public sector in regard to the professional people in the different areas.

We cannot have an imbalance of salaries and wages between the community professions and people at the regional centres or the headquarters level. We have to somehow ensure that equitable resources are there so that we can pay these people for the job they are doing and the qualifications that they have. We should not continue to downgrade or undermine people's abilities simply by offering a community $30,000 or $40,000 and say, here, get a mental health worker.

You cannot do justice to that position by nickeling and diming it. That is something that I do not see in here. I think as a department that you should look at the ways people are treated because they are either not a government employee, they are employed by the community through the band or community councils. We have to somehow bring that in line that these people are working for the public. They are public employees in the sense of the word but we are not treating them like other public employees within the government.

I believe we really have to take a look at the inequity of the salaries of these people. I would like to ask the Minister, what are you doing to ensure that the inequities in salaries and benefits for the workers in our communities, that they are being treated fairly compared to other professions?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Krutko points to one of the human resource and funding problems we have within the current system. We recognize the benefit of having one employer, which is why, in the South Slave, we are initiating attempts to bring in Lutselk'e, Fort Resolution and Hay River under the UNW and under the department as employees.

There is, as the Member pointed out, a discrepancy or a difference between what our government employees are paid and what NGOs are funded for their staff. I do not have a quick answer. I know that part of our human resource strategy deals with that issue, I know there are very modest increases built into the budget for salary increases for NGOs.

In terms of dealing with it to the extent that the Member has suggested, at this point, I do not have the numbers to put on the table to demonstrate what the cost would be. I know that there is a significant difference and we have to quantify that and plan best how to move ahead if we are going to address it.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The other week through the committee, we had a very interesting hour or so with a group of students who enrolled in the nursing program here in the Northwest Territories and we got some very interesting perspectives about the job and the profession and the system that we have, and hopefully they will be going to work with.

One aspect that we asked them about and got a really strong endorsement of was telehealth. In fact, it was surprising to me how strongly and how vividly they endorsed this tool as something that would really make a difference. As we are focusing on the delivery of reliable quality health services, especially in the smaller communities, it would seem that accelerating the installation of telehealth as a diagnostic tool, and a good one, is an opportunity that we are missing as far as getting better health care services out to the communities in an economical way.

I wanted to see if the Minister could offer some information about when we will be able to see an actual expansion of that program. We know the $200,000 is in the budget this year for an enhancement under the Telehealth Program. I do not know exactly what that means. Maybe we can get some information about that as well.

It is really the expansion into more communities of telehealth that I would like to see if we can find a bit more about. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.