Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me Ms. Paddy Meade, deputy minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Minister. Welcome, witness. General comments, Department of Health and Social Services. General comments. What is the wish of the committee? Detail? Begin on page 6-2 in regard to department summary. We’ll move to page 6-4. Activity summary, program delivery support, infrastructure investment summary, no dollars. Agreed?

Agreed. Moving on. Health services programs, activity summary, infrastructure investment summary, total infrastructure investment summary, $15.491. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Since being elected and coming into this Assembly, one of the issues that was on Yellowknife’s agenda, obviously, was the Stanton Territorial Health Centre here in Yellowknife. It was in the plan when we first got here, there was some work being done, but it seems that it’s dropped off and we often ask about the Stanton Master Development Plan and it seems to be gone yet again.

The building needs work. I know that there are things being done in the department, the Foundation for Change being the primary one, but I still wonder when are we going to see something come forward on Stanton. When are we going to

see the plans so we know what upgrades and what improvements are going to be needed to that aging building?

Minister of Health, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is an item in the budget, in the capital estimates for Stanton, eight hundred and some thousand dollars to do a planning study. I’d like to ask the deputy minister, who is also the public administrator, to give the Members an update on the work that we’re doing with respect to Stanton Territorial Hospital.

Deputy Minister Meade.

Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Going back to my original question, is there a bit of a timeline on that? When are we going to be seeing that plan coming back and when can we actually expect to see some progress being done on the facility itself at Stanton?

Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The planning study money is for this fiscal year and at the end of that we should have a detailed plan on the need and the functional programming and the total dollar amount for Stanton. So I can’t say it’s going to be in the books next year, but it will be working through the process.

Thank you to the Minister for that. Same page, slightly different topic. I see that there are a number of replacements for health centres, one in Hay River, one in Fort Providence, as well as a renovation in Fort Smith and there’s a health centre and long-term care facility in Norman Wells. Given the strategic vision of this 16th Assembly, can you tell me whether or not those buildings are being built environmentally responsible? Specifically, are you putting pellet boilers and those types of equipment in these new health centres in the renovations to save us money over the long term? Thank you.

All building projects under government funding are a joint project between

service departments like ours, Department of Health and Social Services, and building departments, the Department of Public Works. I believe the Department of Public Works has a committee or a group set up to look at the environmental aspect of that. So I don’t know if Minister McLeod has any more to add, but the building and the design and the environmental part of it is DPW’s side. Thank you.

Minister of Public Works, do you have anything to add?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. These projects are still currently under the department and at some point will be transferred over for project management, I’m assuming. Having said that, all these projects are required to go through a planning process. We also have standards that we’ve set in place for all our new buildings that would be focused on energy efficiency and integrate standards of where we look at alternate energy as part of a process. So there will be consideration on all those projects.

At this point it’s too early to say what the specifics would be as they’re still in the planning stage. For example, the Fort Resolution and Fort Providence health centres will take a two-year turnaround before they come back for capital consideration. So that will be the time frame that would be considered for design, for enhancements for energy efficiency and alternate energy. Thank you.

Mr. Abernethy.

Mr. Chair, obviously, we encourage the Department of Health and the Department of Public Works and Services to make sure that those buildings are as efficient as possible to keep our operation costs down.

My last question on this section is about the seventh item down you’ve got a GNWT office and records centre warehouse and you’re doing some tenant improvements in Inuvik. I’m assuming that that is a health related building, or a health related tenant improvement, but it’s not particularly clear. Can you tell me what tenant improvements we’re doing and for which division of Health and Social Services, or is it an authority that these tenant improvements are being done?

Deputy Minister Meade.

Next I have Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I see that you’re looking at improvement, renovating, replacing some health centres here. I just wanted to raise, of course, the concern of the facilities in Fort Simpson, as well as Nahanni Butte. The health centre did need some work. I don’t really see it here, but what are the plans of Health and Social Services in regard to those two facilities, Mr. Chair?

Minister of Health, Ms. Lee.