The Stanton Territorial Health Authority has been under the management of a public administrator since 2002, I believe. What I did was appoint a new public administrator in May of this year.

With respect to Beaufort-Delta, there is no plan to dissolve that board and appoint a new public administrator. As the Member is aware, the Strategic Initiative Committee on Refocusing Government is reviewing the work of all the boards under Health and Social Services; Housing; and Education, Culture and Employment. We will have to wait to see the outcome of that work.

I do take the Member’s point that it is my job to make sure the boards are functioning at their optimum level, and we are doing a lot of work with Beaufort-Delta in that regard.

Mr. Speaker, I should also note that vacancies don’t usually save us money. Often vacancies cost us money. Having vacancies does not mean we don’t deliver the work. We do deliver the work by locums, staff-fills, floating nurses or doctors. So often vacancies do cost money. The boards try to fill vacancies as much as possible. But there is a lot of pressure in getting health care professionals into our communities.