Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Page 6-9, health and social services. We're still on general comments, so I'll call for general comments from the floor.

Detail. Okay, we'll go to page 6-9. Directorate, operations expense, total operations expense, $6.198 million.

Page 6-13, program delivery support, operations support, total operations expense, $28.595 million. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Earlier in general comments, I raised the issue of the retention and recruitment section of the department. Seeing under program delivery support there's some mention of recruitment and training here, I'd like to know from the Minister if he's had an opportunity to look at...if he's got numbers that he can provide the committee regarding how many staff have been hired through this recruitment and retention section.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we have numbers that we can offer in regard to nurses that job offers have been made with. We can also give the Member our current vacancy rates that will indicate where we're still short. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd be glad to have those numbers and just to be clear, is it numbers where the recruitment and retention section has helped in hiring of new staff, or is that just staff overall? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we can provide the numbers of staff that have been hired with the assistance of the recruitment and retention unit. As well, we will also, just for general information, provide the latest vacancy rates in the authorities and in the department so the Member can see where we still have problems. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. We're on page 6-13, program delivery support, operations expense, total operations expense, $28.585 million.

Page 6-15, program delivery support, grants and contributions, contributions, total contributions, $15.715 million. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I notice that the amount that we're contributing to health and social services authorities for telehealth coordinators is going up. I was wondering if we could get a bit of an explanation for what the plan is for the expenditures in this coming year.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, while we don't have all the funds we would like, we are seeking to put in three new sites: one in Yellowknife, Lutselk'e, Deninu. They won't be the full-scale telehealth sites. They will have video conferencing capability, and we'll get the frame in place for further expansion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can we get a bit of a snapshot of where we are in rolling out telehealth? I think that Members had been quite supportive of this initiative when it was first announced, with the expectation that we would be able to improve services to Northerners. I think it would be interesting to know how successful we've been at implementing this.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll just grab this one piece of information here. Mr. Chairman, we have coordinators for Fort Simpson, Fort Smith, Hay River, Inuvik, and Yellowknife, two in Stanton, which is a total of seven of complete funding. We also have information we provided to committee, which shows the system usage as of April 1, 2002, to December 31, 2002, in terms of the type of usage and the total number of people served, which I can share with the committee once again. I'm not sure if it was given to Committee of the Whole or Social Programs, but I can share that with the committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Dent.