Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Premier, Mr. Handley.

Mr. Speaker, I don't know which one is the main one, but I tell you, us not working together is one for sure. We need to work together. You put your finger on that one today. A second one is a real infrequence by the bureaucracy in Ottawa who just don't get it. They want to treat us as if we are a colony out there. Mr. Speaker, I think those are the two main things that are stopping us. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Supplementary, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the Premier for that answer because it is something that I have always been wondering about. I look around this Assembly. We have Inuvialuit in here. We have the Gwich'in. We have the Sahtu. We have the Dehcho, Tlicho, Akaitcho, Metis. We pretty well have everybody covered in here as far as the major claimant groups go. The Premier just heard me name off the major groups as I see them. Has the Premier ever sat in a room leader to leader, government to government with these seven or eight major claimant groups, came up with a strategy and tried to move this issue of resource revenue and devolution forward? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Speaker, yes, I have several times. I have sat down with all of the leaders and tried to come up with one consensus on agreement. In fact, we have done it through the Circle of Northern Leaders. I think we are the first government to have all of the leaders together, 50 some leaders together around the table, to try to get a consensus. Mr. Speaker, we need everybody to work with us and to recognize and maybe some compromise and so on on everybody's part to make this work. But we have done it. We have done it on several occasions. I have done it individually. I have done it with everybody together. I have done it with those with land claims, those without and so on, Mr. Speaker. I am going to continue to do that, because I think working in partnership is something that you can't just do once. It is an ongoing exercise. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Supplementary, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Premier said that he met with all these groups. I was asking if he met with them all at the same time, all seven or eight major leaders, because I have gone to a few leadership summits. There is the Aboriginal Summit, there are some other groups, but it seems to me that there is always someone missing. There is always a group missing. Are all of these groups part of the Aboriginal Summit? Has he met with every single leader in the same room? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Speaker, I met with every single regional leader in the same room several times. The most recent time was in Norman Wells in about April. At that time, in fact, I met with the leaders and with Minister Prentice in the room as well. Mr. Speaker, we have had several of those meetings. In terms of all of the leaders, chiefs, mayors and everybody we tried; we never got everybody together, but regional leadership, yes. We have met with them several times. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Final, short supplementary, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to clarify, I don't go to Ottawa to meet with bureaucrats. I don't meet with bureaucrats here. They meet with our bureaucrats. I go to Ottawa and meet with the leaders and that is the Prime Minister, the Minister of DIAND or another federal Minister.

Mr. Speaker, just to be clear though, I think it would be very difficult and it may be impossible to have the Prime Minister to agree to meet with me as a political leader without having one of his staff in the room and so on. I think putting in that kind of a request, we probably wouldn't get the meeting. But even if the bureaucrats are sitting there, it is political leader to political leader. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mr. Roland. It is in follow-up to Ms. Lee's questions. The Minister was here last week when I was questioning the former Minister of Health and Social Services on a meeting that I had with 17 constituents here in Yellowknife who brought to my attention a number of issues, patient safety, staff safety, and staffing in general at Stanton. Mr. Speaker, I have been hearing, after making those comments in this House last week, from other health centres in Inuvik, Fort Smith and Hay River, that some of these issues are prevalent in other health centres as well, not just Stanton Hospital here in Yellowknife. The former Minister said that it would take two weeks to get a redraft of the staffing report that was done in April that went to the department. Obviously, it wasn't good enough or it didn't say what the department wanted to say. It went back to the drafters or the consultant for a redraft. I would like to know exactly when we are going to get a copy of this staffing report. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can't give the Member an exact date of when the report will be brought forward. I was part of the discussion or listening to the commitment made by the previous Minister in this area. As I stated earlier to Ms. Lee, it will be our duty to follow up on that to ensure that the information does come forward in a timely fashion. There has been much work done that we have to look at and pull together. But I believe there was a commitment made already. Again, I have confirmed today that we will bring that forward and deal with that. It is easy enough to say that there are difficulties within the territory in the delivery of health care services. The more difficult thing is how are we going to work together to ensure that we provide the adequate level of service to all residents? I think we have gone a long way in trying to meet those needs. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my mind, and judging by the comments I have heard, the e-mails I have got, and the telephone calls that I have taken on this issue, I don't think the government is listening to the front-line health care professionals here in the Northwest Territories. It is obvious to me that there are problems, especially in the area of staffing. When management says that the front-line worker is expendable, that causes me a great deal of concern. This is happening far too often. I think we run the risk of losing a lot of our front-line staff here if we don't take some immediate action to try to address this concern. I am not sure who is going to be the next Minister responsible for Health, but in the meantime, the Minister responsible today, I would like to ask him if he would entertain getting together some Regular Members from this side of the House to actually go out and do some of the work and listen to the concerns that are out there, because I think people want somebody to listen. Management is not doing it. We are here. I will certainly make myself available to do that, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am not prepared at this stage to have a committee of Regular Members and myself or a joint committee of members and Ministers go through a political process of questioning staff and putting them under that situation. In fact, I believe an employee survey was used in 2002, if I have the dates right or the year right of an employment survey done on an independent process. I think that would be the more appropriate tool to use.

As the Government of the Northwest Territories on the human resource side, dealing with the front-line workers, we have done a lot to try and alleviate the problems. It is not 100 percent, but we have gone a long way. The use of agency nurses to cover our shortages and that is not the best response but that is a response that we have been able to do. Recruitment of nurses, we have now a unit within Human Resources to deal with that. Community Health Nurse Development Program has been put into place. Graduate Nurse Placement Program, the guarantees of jobs for those graduates here in the Northwest Territories, Nurse Practitioner Education Leave Bursary Program, Physician Program and bursaries that we have available. We have done what we can to try and meet the needs out there and deal with front-line service issues. We are not going to be able to take care of it all at once, but we are working to ensure that we are dealing with them respectfully. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I respect the Minister and what he has brought to the table here today. There are a number of programs out there. I am not talking about programs. I am talking about our front-line staff who want to be able to have someone to listen to their concerns and act on them. You can have all of the programs you want, but if you are not listening to your staff, there are going to be difficulties and such as I mentioned earlier, patient safety and especially staff safety. There are a number of areas of concern here. I would like the Minister to again make a commitment that he will go out, if he is, in fact, the next Minister of Health and Social Services of the government, whoever it is going to be. Somebody has to go out. Somebody has to listen before we lose any more front-line health care workers in this territory. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.