Thank you, Madam Chair. I do have a few opening comments or general comments on Supplementary Appropriation, No. 1 that's before us today. I won't ask any questions, I'll wait for the detail, but I just wanted to highlight a few areas of concern for me and it's nothing new; it won't come as anything new to the Minister. He's heard me say it many times before. I think some of the Ministers are paying attention over there. So, position growth in the public service. Again, in this supplementary appropriation there are new positions. There's positions that are being refunded. There's two with MACA, the resource impact development advisors, $291,000. There's a number of areas that nobody's come back to this House and shown us the performance or these positions, which I questioned two years ago, we're not closer to a pipeline today, Madam Chair, than we were two years ago. Arguably a little bit closer, yes, Mr. Minister of ITI, but here we are, we still don't have a pipeline, we still don't have resource development, and we're going to fund these positions again. It was a question two years ago when they were supposed to sunset. I see there's $291,000 in here to keep those positions. What have they done for the last two years, those positions? I'd really like to know that and I think the Minister should supply that information to the House, and the Department of MACA should supply that to the House.
Another, aside from the position growth, real area of concern for me is how we're managing our health care facilities in the Beau-Del, Stanton, and now I hear rumblings that there's some trouble with the Sahtu as well, with the board there, and deficits. Last year we approved through supplementary appropriations a bail-out for Stanton; and we're not talking $50,000, $100,000, we're talking somewhere in the magnitude of 10 to 15 million, when all is said and done, Madam Chair. It's not a small matter. We don't have any plan to address how these health facilities are run. I'm not sure, and I've been left, you know, unaware of what exactly is happening. Are we chronically underfunding our hospitals and health boards which is forcing them into running deficits like they are and coming back here and us having to bail them out? Is it mismanagement? Is it the department not paying attention? Who ultimately, Madam Chair -- and I'd like to ask the Minister when I get a chance through the detail -- who ultimately is responsible for this mess? And it is a mess. If the department comes back to this House with a deficit recovery plan, the people who are going to be paying the price are the patients and the residents here in the Northwest Territories. To me, Madam Chair, that's just not fair. It's not fair. Not fair to the people we represent. They shouldn't have to deal with deficit recovery plans and cutbacks and things of that nature when deficit recovery plans are entered into. It's something that I really, you know, and the more I see of it, the more it bothers me. I'm not sure if we need to maybe take a look, a more macro look at how we're running our health authorities. Maybe we don't need all the boards we have. Maybe we need one board with a member from each region in the Northwest Territories to function as one health board. Maybe the time has come where we should seriously take a look at the money we're spending and, in effect, if we could administer our health system, we've only got 42,000 people. Why do we need all the health boards? Why can't we do it with one board? I think that's a question, Madam Chair, that I think we'll have to deal with. Maybe the next Assembly will have to deal with that question. But it's one we should ask ourselves.
I think I'll leave it at that, Madam Chair. I again thank you for allowing me some general comments. I look forward to the discussion that will be coming up. Mahsi.