Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the issue of recruitment of nurses for the Government of the Northwest Territories is, in fact, an area that we focused on. In fact, as of July this summer, we, within the human resource group, pulled a number of people together and their sole focus is dealing with the recruitment of nurses. Since July, we have been helpful, in fact, in pulling together and hiring 55 indeterminate or term nurses in that time period. So that unit is starting to work. We have had to make a number of those adjustments as we've moved along to fine tune HR and the way we do the work as well as try to focus on the more critical areas. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am going to take a run at a question again today. Today, I would like to ask the Premier something that I was trying to get an answer from Mr. Krutko about yesterday. Mr. Speaker, we have spent an inordinate amount of money as this government talking about energy efficiency, lowering our greenhouse gas emissions, making energy an issue with respect to the cost of living of northerners, and we have come up with a lot of very abstract concepts. Again, last night as I watched CBC, I see the budding actors of the Arctic Energy Alliance again with their public service announcement on CBC which

must cost a lot of money talking about not leaving their vehicles idling and all that sort of thing. It is not enough. I would like to see us do something more tangible. I would like to ask the Premier today if there is any way that an amount of money could be identified that would allow northerners living in their own homes to access money to make home improvements that would lower their cost of utilities in their communities on a repayment basis. Like I said, we have had a lot of money for consultation, posters, advertisements and all kinds of promotional material and gimmicks. How about some real cash that northerners could access on a repayable basis to do some home improvements to save costs on the bottom line for their cost of operating their homes? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Premier, Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I agree that we can't just advertise and urge people to cut down on their energy consumption. That is important. I think the work of the Arctic Energy Alliance is good in that one. We do have to look at some more specific ways of helping people in the North to reduce their cost of living and to make their homes more energy efficient. Mr. Speaker, as we go through our budget planning process in preparing for each budget, there is opportunity for Members to have input, and certainly if the Members in this House are ready to support us, then we would look seriously at a program similar to such as Mrs. Groenewegen is raising. Or there might be other good ideas out there how we might get a good bang for the buck by providing some very specific things to residents in the North. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Premier for that answer. We need to do something now. I don't know why this has never been done before. I don't know what other ideas might be out there, but this is one idea that's not out there. That's an idea that's right here and now and it seems like it should be simple. Keep the list of things that people could access money for short; a pellet stove, a wood stove, windows, insulation, siding. Even put a cap on it. Say a maximum of $10,000 repayable interest free. They save the money on their bill; they use their savings to repay the loan. It seems simple to me and, like I said, when you compare it to the amount of money that we put into some of these things which have netted really unquantifiable results, I think it's a good idea. What department would the Minister or the Premier see such a program coming under? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Speaker, if we were to do the program that Mrs. Groenewegen's referring to it would either be done through the Housing Corporation or it could be done through ENR, that would be another possibility, or a combination of departments. We did have programs similar to that in the past where we assisted people to buy things like solar panels and turbines and so on. This is something more specific and, Mr. Speaker, with the support of Members, then of course our government is ready to look at this kind of good program. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I respect the Premier's reference to the budget planning process and that kind of thing, but I think we need to do something now. I think that we should demonstrate that we can actually come up with an idea and find money for it. I'm sure we found money for all kinds of other things when they presented as an emergency and I think this is urgent. I think this is an urgent need in the North. I don't want to see this months and years in the planning. Let's keep it simple and let's try to find some money for a program to start as soon as possible. Is that possible? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, that's possible. We're well into our business planning. This would require new money, as Members know, but if there was a consensus here, or a majority of people agreed, then certainly we would look at that. We've looked at it, but we also have to recognize our fiscal situation. It may have to be somewhat limited or modest, but we're certainly not opposed to that kind of support. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, like I said, we do dedicate a lot of dollars to the concept of energy conservation and I would like to ask the Premier then if he would support the reprofiling of some money that may already be identified in the budget that could be reprofiled for something more tangible, something more real to northerners that we could get this program set up as soon as possible. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Certainly we would and we would look for advice from the Members as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Thebacha, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions as well are to the Minister of Human Resources and in my 20 years on government as a manager and superintendent, acting regional director, even as a carpenter's apprentice with the union, and in this House here, all the Assemblies, I have been very interested in human resources. In fact, I know some of the Members here from the 13th Assembly, we did not speak in favour of the disbanding of the Personnel department of the day and it's taken nine years for the government to come back to realize that they do need a centralized human resource function which is so critical to government. I know as Minister of Health and Social Services and ENR I thought we got very good service.

My question to the Minister is just to give a sense of scale here. Can the Minister indicate firstly how many employees do we have and could he give us a ballpark figure of how many transactions in any given week or month that we would probably do or deal with with the various employees in the various forms?

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Minister responsible for Human Resources, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, to actually get a breakdown of the full amount of employees and break them down whether it's casual employment or indeterminate would take a bit of work. But I know on average there are over four and a half thousand employees across the Northwest Territories that we run payroll for. So you do your payroll. In fact, for example, when you deal with terminations there's a lot of people coming and going within government and an average monthly...For example, in the last nine months, Mr. Speaker, the average monthly termination process we've dealt with have been 357. So that's a fair bit of workload dealing throughout that exercise. We've had to deal with the new hires, recruitment, as well as dealing with our backlog situation as I made mention of earlier. In fact, I believe we are starting to come around to now start focusing on not just dealing with past issues, which has slowed us down substantially, but now look at how we really deal with our human resources going forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Supplementary, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I know that there's also concern for some of the facilities and how they're currently operating and I'd just like to ask, get some assurances from the Minister that while there may be some complaints from a small number of employees, will whatever work is done in terms of making sure we do employee satisfaction surveys that it will involve as well the hundreds of employees that I would consider the silent majority so that we do not have our policies and direction for Stanton set just on small numbers of employees that may raise specific concerns. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Roland.