Director of corporate services, right? Welcome witnesses. I believe we are on page 6-13, program delivery support, budget summary, operations expense, total operations expense, $24 million.

Grants and contributions, program delivery support, contributions, total contributions, $14,485,000. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was wondering, are we not going to deal with page 6-14?

This is program delivery support, so you can speak to it. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I see that one of the line items here is recruitment and development. I was wondering if the Minister could speak a bit to the recruitment program and its effectiveness to date, and where we are headed with it in his view.

The Minister of Health, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The recruitment and retention initiatives have had some success. It has been identified by all the board chairs, and by the department as well, as the number one priority that we have to continue to pay very close attention to. The recruitment of professionals, nurses and doctors, in addition to the allied health and social services professionals, is something that we are looking at as we speak as part of the action plan to see how we can improve how we coordinate our efforts, definitely on the hiring of doctors and nurses. We are looking at longer term issues like the Nurse Practitioners Program. We are looking at some legislation to do some of the collaborative pilots that are necessary. We have also been getting some very strong messages. We have to look at other areas like the social workers, and the other community support people, like the alcohol and drug workers.

We have had some success but it has clearly opened up an area for us in terms of a comprehensive human resource strategy that makes us recognize that we have to look at all the people and all the professions within the department. Thank you.

Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to hear the Minister say that we have had some success. I was wondering if the Minister could quantify that success for us in terms of the numbers of nurses recruited that we have managed to attract to work for the boards in the Northwest Territories and the number of physicians that we have attracted, just in terms of numbers and which boards they are working for. I would appreciate some more quantification to this line. Thank you.

Minister of Health.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As of February 15th I can indicate the number of nurses, social workers and physicians that we have. I can share these documents or I can read them, whatever the Member would prefer. I have three separate documents for social workers, nurses and physicians.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. If we can, we will have copies made for the Members. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think rather than reading it into the record, it would be useful to have the copies and then, perhaps just for the information of the public, you could table the documents tomorrow so they are also available, if he is prepared to make that information public.

What I am wondering though is that he says that he has the numbers, but I gather from what he is saying is that we are talking about total numbers here. What I am interested in is some quantification of what we have seen in terms of actual recruitment. Have we attracted three nurses to the Northwest Territories with this program or have we attracted 30? That is really what I am looking for. Have we attracted one doctor or ten?

Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do not have that specific level of detail, of being able to crack out or break out doctors or nurses who have come up here specifically because of recruitment and retention or because they knew other doctors or nurses, or because they responded to just our general advertising. It all links together.

I can indicate that we are still looking for doctors and nurses, and in some cases, social workers as well, especially with the new positions that are being funded in this budget. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Minister, can you give a copy of that to the page so we can get copies to the Members so we have something to follow? Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was not sure from the Minister's answer whether he does not have that kind of information available or if it is not being tracked -- if he does not have it available now, if he can get it for us later, or if it is not being tracked. I am assuming that he is saying that it has not been tracked. That causes me a bit of concern, especially knowing the number of times that I have heard Mr. Miltenberger in this House demand that there be accountability for the expenditure of dollars. I would expect that there would be some kind of mechanism used, whether by surveying new hires or through some method to find out whether or not our actions were in fact productive.

We keep voting money to spend on recruitment and retention. I would hope that there is going to be some tracking of whether or not that expenditure is making sense for us. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There has been an interim review done on the recruitment and retention strategy. I will commit to get numbers for this Legislature and the Member that will give you, to the best of our ability, the information that he has requested. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to seeing that information. There is another line item here called systems development. It has gone from $3.8 million in last year's main estimates to $4.1 million proposed in the 2002-2003 main estimates. What exactly is systems development?

The Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Systems development speaks to the information systems that we are investing significant amounts of money in, as it has been clearly identified over the past number of years that our systems are weak. We spent money on the child welfare information system. We are looking at improving PeopleSoft. We are moving towards a standard financial system. Those are the types of areas we are looking at when we talk about systems development. Thank you.