Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm looking through my notes here. What we've done is we've reprofiled some money. It was part of the recruitment and retention document that was put out. It's going to allow us to do things like professional development, remissible student bursaries, social work, mentorship program, and we got, which totalled I believe, $482,000 in that area. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe the Minister said remissible bursaries. I thought that a bursary was a grant. Can we get a bit of an explanation as to how the bursary system works?

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the intent of remissibility is to help attract professionals coming out of school and assisting them with paying off and paying down any of the costs they may have incurred, and set up a range in the harder to staff communities where the percentage of remissibility is greater than it would be in some of the larger centres. But the whole intent is to try to provide an incentive to attract professionals: nurses, doctors, and other allied health professionals.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Chair recognizes Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the area of contributions to health and social services authorities under professional development and retention, can the Minister inform us who is eligible for this professional development?

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, it's open to all allied health and social services professionals, and it's going to be based on current job evaluation. It will outline the training requirements based on that particular document being done, it will indicate what's required by the particular employee and profession. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Was that fully taken up in the previous year?

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, that particular program just came into play late in this fiscal year, so we've been working on the uptake and setting up the process to make sure that it is accessed. But it's relatively new in the latter part of this fiscal year. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can the Minister inform us as to how a nurse would be able to take this within the existing conditions they find themselves working in? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we have to work with the authorities, and we have been working with the authorities on this particular initiative. One of the issues is, of course, to have the time and the backfill capacity so that nurses and other allied health professionals for social services and health can take that. So it's going to be a management planning function, where if you're doing your job evaluations and you have enough lead time, you have to work with the authorities to make sure that they have the adequate staffing so that when a nurse or an employee goes off on professional development that the service levels are still maintained. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under contributions to health and social services authorities, just going back to your comment you made earlier in the House today about the discretionary latitude of health authorities to reallocate money within their budget. I'm a little bit concerned about that, because when you talk about having a system that clearly defines the services that are available in any particular community or region, if there are difficulties with staffing in order to carry out certain programs and services, what you're saying then is that that money could be spent on anything else and it kind of undermines the whole basis for the budget process. If health authorities come forward with budgets, there are certain line items in there for certain programs and services. But then when unforeseen things happen such as the inability to staff positions, that money can just be arbitrarily used for something else. I have a problem with that, particularly since health authorities, all except for a couple of them, have been facing deficits. It seems like it might be a deficit recovery. There could be some incentive to not staff positions in order to address deficits. In fact, then the money gets used for something else. It's just kind of a downloading of the costs associated with that service, for example, people having to go to Edmonton or go to Yellowknife to receive those services. Another thing that could occur if it's at the territorial level here, is the example that Ms. Lee gave today, where there's a shortage of nurses in a certain area of service. So people get medevaced, then that doesn't come back to show on their budget, the potential costs of Larga and whatever the Alberta government charges for those services at a different hospital out of territory. So I want to know in your new plans if you have specific measures you're contemplating to address that potential problem with that discretionary latitude. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, we do, Mr. Chairman. We've been working, over the last 14 months or so, to try to better coordinate all aspects of all the authorities and the department to do this together. The issue of adequate and accurate financial information is one that we are still working with. But we are now working on variance reports that come in quarterly. We also have program people tracking expenditures. We have the senior managers of the department and authorities meeting on a regular basis, as well. I appreciate the Member's concern, and it's a concern that I share as well, that we don't want professional development money, for example, that is important for retention, to be used for some other unanticipated expenditures that may not be what was contemplated, putting us at a disadvantage. So we want to, within reason -- and authorities have within reason -- flexibility, but they don't have total latitude. We are working collectively to make sure that we all stay on task and on target. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you. Just on the subject of deficits and contributions to the authorities, what is the status of the deficits right now and deficit recovery? Stanton's deficit, now that there's no board, how are you planning to address that situation?