Mr. Chairman, the telehealth coordinators in the operation of that service by Health, I want to let the Minister know that it’s been very successful. I have witnessed it myself personally. I have seen people who have used it and are not quite sure if it was there. I had asked the Minister how we get the information out to our communities and it’s done in their own aboriginal languages, I understand. So I want to say this has been one of the successes of this program, because they had some good feedback from people I know that use this program. I just wanted to let the Minister know this is a good program and I am glad to see it and continue to see it in the Northwest Territories in this fashion here.

Probably like any other program, there is always room for improvement, but I hope to see some type of evaluation in areas that could be expanded in terms of this type of service. I want to say to the Minister and the House I congratulate the people on the other line who have been very patient and understanding in terms of this service to people who I know who have used it.

My one comment I have is through the Arctic Health Research Network. I am very surprised that there are no dollars committed to ’09-10, especially with the research that you are developing with aboriginal people in various areas of wellness or services and engage aboriginal people in terms of how they view health or services in the communities. That’s what I am making the assumption about. This organization could be one that could help with issues that I have heard from Mr. Krutko in how we start engaging different forms of support for communities using the strengths of our culture and our beliefs in terms of wellness in our communities.

So, Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the Minister if there is any type of other areas her department is looking at in her engagement with the federal government in terms of this organization receiving a new mandate or some additional dollars that would take on some of the concerns and issues that she’s heard over the last couple of days regarding aboriginal health specifically.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With respect to the Arctic Health Research Network, it should be pointed out that this is not the extent, the $10,000 not being in next year or last year, from 2007-08, should not indicate that they are not getting funding from the government. They have a number of very significant multi-million projects they are working on. They get funded from a number of organizations, government and otherwise; International Polar Year and all kinds of Arctic research work. I could undertake to have them tell us some of the projects they are working on as well as some of the funding sources, if they are willing to share it with us. But it is a very vibrant, active research network and we work closely. In fact, I am meeting with them tomorrow because they want to talk about some other funding ideas. We support them, we partner and we write letters in support of them and they have some really interesting and exciting projects on the way. So this $10,000 is not part of what they need. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With regards to the professional development, recruitment and retention, $1.6 million, I noticed that the amounts have gone down over the years, yet we still have recruitment challenges especially in our smaller communities. I know for a fact -- I’ll use Tsiigehtchic again -- there was a nurse there for three months. I know the nurse is willing to stay in the community longer, but she requested an extension of her stay but in regards to recruitment,

the HR system we are working with now working with Human Resources, that because she didn’t get an answer, basically she was offered another position in the Yukon and she took the position in the Yukon. I would just like to know with the amount of money we are spending in this area and now working with HR, you’d think if anything you would be able to speed up or bring down some of those barriers where people are waiting to be recruited, but because we waited so long we lose them to other jurisdictions. I would just like to know what improvements are there by way of the $1.6 million being expended in this area and the amount of challenges we are still facing by recruiting for small communities.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is year two of the reductions that the Department of Health and Social Services has to undertake, along with all the other departments, as part of some of their reduction measures. In total, for two years we spent about $7.5 million in this area. We are proposing to reduce it by $1.5 million. Still there will be funding available to do a number of training programs that are available to our nurses especially: Advance Nursing Mentoring Program, Community Health Nurse Development Program, Graduate Nurse Placement Program, Professional Development Initiatives, Southern Education Bursary, Nurse Practitioner Leave Bursary and others. So these programs will still be active. It’s reduced somewhat and my understanding at the time when we were talking about these reductions are that these programs are not always fully subscribed. So we just are reducing it by about 20 percent. Thank you.

I noticed on the previous page, there’s $6.394 million. Yet on this page, you’ve got...Where is the remaining $4 million for that program?

The $1.631 million is the contribution we make to the authorities. The rest of the money is administered through Human Resources. Thank you.

The challenge we’ve had with Tsiigehtchic is that in order to have a permanent nurse there, we have to have two because the union requirements and other employment practice rules require that you can’t have one person working in one station because that person will never get any break, and it’s expected that person will probably get a call at night and such. So we would require about a $500,000 investment to have a permanent nurse in Tsiigehtchic. I am continually talking with Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority to see a way to do this. It is more difficult for the Beaufort-Delta to do this than other authorities. They have been experiencing more financial difficulties, but I have had this discussion again with the Gwich’in leaders, and the accommodation in housing seems to be one of the issues, as well, to bring two people into there. So it’s an ongoing work and it’s an ongoing challenge and I am committed to see what we can do to make that happen. Thank you.

Again, I mean, it sounds like another roadblock that the community of Tsiigehtchic has to fill. Now you want two nurses in there. If we can get half a nurse and see a doctor twice a month, we’ll be happy. We have locums where we are paying $850 a day to get them into different communities or even here in Yellowknife at Stanton Hospital. Yet, you can’t get nurses into communities. To me, I think there is something wrong with that picture. So I would like to know how many locums are still being used in recruitment and retention and yet we can’t fill these positions in communities.

Mr. Chairman, I could commit to the Member that we can work on having a nurse in Tsiigehtchic at least half of the year. Thank you.

Which half?

Is that really a serious question? Ms. Bisaro.

Mr. Chairman, I have a question with regard to the explanation of the primary community services, primary care, grants and contributions. It states that some of this $522,000 is for Rick Hansen ‘Man in Motion’. My understanding is that’s not really a territorial organization or...Yes, organization, I guess; foundation I think it is as well. So why is it that we are providing funding to an organization such as Man in Motion? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think the Rick Hansen Foundation is a national organization and he was here I think last spring, I believe, and met with the Premier and lots of Members who were here. It’s one that I think the Council of Persons with Disabilities and others who appreciate his work and his foundation’s work have asked for funding. Out of the $522,000 listed there, we are providing $183,000 to the NWT Seniors’ Society; $212,000 to the Council of Persons with Disabilities; $62,000 to CNIB; and $20,000 to the Rick Hansen Foundation. The rest, $45,000, goes into smaller pockets. Thank you.

Thank you for the explanation. Can I get some explanation of what this $20,000 for the Man in Motion Rick Hansen Foundation is going to be used for? Again, I have difficulties that we are funding a national organization. There are all kinds of national organizations who do do things in the Territories, but it’s not my understanding that we fund them. I am wondering why the funding is going directly to this national organization and is not being flowed through a territorial organization, say the Council of Persons with Disabilities. Thank you.

My information is that the money goes to the foundation but projects are on the ground in the NWT, but we don’t have any more information than that. So I will undertake to get back to the Member as to exactly how we are spending that money and to confirm that it’s being spent here. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for that and for the commitment. I guess I would just state that I have a difficulty with the philosophy of this particular grant. I certainly appreciate that territorial residents are probably going to get the benefit of this money, but the optics of this particular grant and contribution is really troubling me. It leads me to consider that...I believe we have way too many grants and contributions in many areas of the budget; this is just one example. I think the department should consider if we are going to be making grants, that they are only made to grants that are a territorial organization. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with that principle and I will undertake to do that.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I’d like to rephrase my six-month question to the Minister. It’s good you are saying it’s going to be half a year, but six months...Right now, the community is isolated between breakup and freeze-up and there are certain times of the year when they are isolated totally from being able to drive out

of that community. In most cases, we have a nurse there between October and December and then you’ll have a nurse back there in April, May, June during breakup and freeze-up. So is that the six months you are talking about that is presently in place or are you talking about two weeks in and two weeks off? When is the six months that you said they were going to have nurses in Tsiigehtchic?