Thank you, Mr. Bell. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On the heels of my Member's statement where I rose and spoke about the need for a Crown corporation's accountability act, I have questions for the Minister of FMB, Minister Roland. Mr. Speaker, for a fact, we know Minister Roland sat for a number of years on Cabinet's farm team, also known as a Regular Member.

---Laughter

But now he's on centre ice in the majors and so he's well aware of the problem of not having the right information at the right time. Mr. Speaker, I am sure he knows exactly what audits mean from a Regular Member's perspective. Typically, as we all know, Crown corporations fall outside of a review of Regular Members' purview such as WCB. Would the Minister consider and be open to discussions to look at options of creating a Crown corporations act that will review corporations under the government that are outside of Regular Members' purview? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the fact that Crown corporations within the NWT

fall under the purview of the Auditor General of Canada who has, from time to time on the request of this Assembly, done audit work on Crown corporations that work within the territory, we already have a process where we can get some information for further discussion around how our audit program works. If it can be incorporated in some way, I am open to discussions about that, yes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Speaker, my next question would be to ensure that we can put this in writing. My issue is that we should create legislation that casts it into stone so that we have regular review. The Minister said we can request review, and I appreciate that. He's very right. I remember last year when we pushed for a WCB review, it seemed like we were searching for...(inaudible)...So I would like the Minister to consider today, and I would like a commitment from the Minister, if they would look at and go back to the drawing board and consider creating a process by bringing in new legislation to create an act that would cause reviews for Crown corporations. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are a number of things we have to consider before going down this path. Yes, I am open to discussions about the Audit Bureau's work and what that incorporates. Right now, our portion of that entails work that is directed specifically within departments and, at the request of Ministers as well as Members of this House, we can look into the internal workings.

For the larger ones, as I stated, as has been done in the past, request from this Assembly to the Auditor General of Canada to have a look at overall value for money expenses, not only just a corporation but any department, as well.

One of the things we have to look at is if we decide to do something on our own, where it's going to be an added cost to that, we would also have to take that into consideration. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will first say the Minister is right; if we create a process by creating a Crown corporation's accountability act, there would be costs associated. The one value we could say upfront, without even knowing the long term of this, is we know up front we would be dealing immediately with problems if anything went off the rails. So we would have a step in process right there to deal with problems. We would be well aware of them up front.

Mr. Speaker, it's the request that I want to take out of the picture. I don't want us to have to request this. I want this to be written into stone so it's automatic. So they know every five years, for example, that there will be a value for money audit to ensure that this will happen.

So, Mr. Speaker, would the Minister consider and be open to discussions to look at creating a Crown corporation's accountability act that will cast this in stone, so that we take out any type of decisions, whether we should have one or we shouldn't; it's an automatic process? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, I am open to having that discussion as to the merits of going further out there and establishing something in legislation. I am open to that discussion as to the pros and cons of it. We need to have that discussion. I am open to it and will work with Members if they see support there in wanting to proceed down this path. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services and it's a question he's probably heard quite a few times before and it's a question that's going to continue to be asked. That's with regard to long-term nurses. We continue to pay southern nurses well for working up in the NWT. Again, I understand that they are needed. Do we have a similar plan to compensate our long-term nurses? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the long-term nurses are members of the bargaining unit for the UNW. They are covered under the negotiated contracts that are reached through the collective bargaining process. So that pay is set. We've taken a great effort to make sure they have been adequately classified. We've raised the issue within government. We've had positions reviewed more than once in an effort to make sure that their classification is adequate and recognizes the complexity of the job. We've also invested a lot of time, effort and money into training of nurses, as well as professional development support that's there which is identified by nurses themselves as the second most important issue next to actual compensation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Supplementary, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do put a lot of money into training and everything, but my bottom line is to compensate these long-term nurses financially. Like I said before, all their cost of living and everything else is a lot higher up here. A lot of these nurses are agency nurses from the South. Do we have means of recruiting nurses from the South other than through an agency? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think one of the pieces of good news is that this coming May, we are going to get our first class of graduating nurses with a four-year degree and we expect to have between 20 and 24 northern nurses trained at the bachelor level that are going to be ready to go to work in the Northwest Territories.

In terms of being able to be competitive, we are also looking at working with the nurses, and I have had discussions with the Minister responsible for the public service about ways we can better recognize the burden of smaller communities and the costs in more remote and isolated areas that may not be as adequately covered right now. Similar to what the federal government has done with their isolated post allowance, surely we have issues with the small and northern communities and we are stuck in a cycle of dependency with agency nurses which we are very interested in working hard to break. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Your final supplementary, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am glad to hear we have 20 to 24 graduating in May. My hope is that these 20 to 24 don't move south and get hired on as agency nurses, because it's more rewarding for them financially. I would like to know if the Minister would commit to working or has there been any discussion or plan to come up with some way that we can compensate our long-term nurses the way they deserve to be. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the agency nurses get their salary and they get their way paid in and out after they have done the term they have signed on for. My understanding is it's not the nurses who get the bonus, it's the agency who does the recruiting. So we are working with all the nurse graduates. We intend to work with all and I have discussion with the authorities to be very active in our recruiting for northern nurses and any other nurses that we know are out there in southern institutions that are from the North that we are paying to go to school. We have very generous return of service agreements, and we have negotiated through the collective bargaining process an agreement that's going to carry us to 2008. Right now, it covers their pay and benefits for nurses. Thank you.