Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is directed to the Minister of Health and Social Services. It’s in regard to my Member’s statement on the lack of services in a lot of our communities, especially core services like health care services such as nurses, mental health workers, alcohol and drug workers.

I think it’s very important that this government take this issue seriously. It is having a direct effect not

only on our communities but on this government’s ability to deliver other programs and services, as we can see with the major deficits we’re running in different hospitals in different regions.

I’d like to ask the Minister exactly what her department is doing to deal with these core service issues, where we’re finding that we don’t physically have people in our health centres by way of nurses, mental health workers, alcohol and drug workers. What has the department done to deal with this issue? I’ve raised it here for going on years and years and years.