Mr. Speaker, the formal arrangement we do have is Deze, as I mentioned. The formal call for proposals on the Power Corporation, we have not done that. We have accepted the actual proposals in the sense of reviewing it, but that hasn’t gone anywhere. I put in a public meeting with the regional leaders back in, as I have stated earlier, January of 2009 in Fort

Simpson, said that we are willing to look at a proposal, whether it is joint or a proposal from aboriginal leaders, as well as the meetings held in Dettah in November of 2009. Again, the issue about proposal and open the door, that we would be willing to look at such a proposal if they were to come in. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, again, we are not privy to the ATCO proposal. We haven’t seen it. There have been meetings between the Premier and the Minister of Finance in regards to meetings with Nancy Southern. And yet I know that the Minister is responsible for the Power Corporation. The Minister of Finance is responsible for Finance. I would just like to know in regards to those discussions, if at some point the framework of the ATCO proposal will be put out there so we can get an idea of exactly what is in it, what the benefits are or the advantages or disadvantages are to the people of the Northwest Territories, and also what is it going to cost ourselves as ratepayers in regards to the cost of power if we decide to sell.

Mr. Speaker, over a year ago, I believe, I presented information to Members of this Assembly on what we had received. In fact, there may have been a meeting as well with members to provide that information. At the same time as we laid out our process of how we would look at electricity generation rate subsidies, the Power Corporation itself and this proposal. We have not done any further work on the proposal. There are some very preliminary meetings with some of our senior staff to talk about what that proposal actually meant, if it was a starting position or what. We haven’t gone any further than that. As we decide on these first two pieces on the energy rates regulation piece and the Power Corporation review, we will decide if, in fact, that initial proposal is now ready to go or are we going to deal with these first two reports and go forward on that basis. Thank you.

Final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.

Mr. Speaker, I didn’t hear anything in regards to the meetings held between the Minister of Finance and Nancy Sothern. Was that a pitch for Nancy Southern to come up with $6 million to basically kick-start the Taltson proposal?

Mr. Speaker, it has been our practice, and we talked about the agents and companies but we try to not raise individual members’ names. It is not part of our process in this forum but the proposal or the recent meetings that were held are not tied to that proposal that we initially received. The meetings that Minister Miltenberger spoke of in this House as well as in his budget address was very preliminary talking about would there be interest in looking at partnering up on a project specific basis. Again, we are, as we have shown on Deze already with Taltson, we have

partnerships with aboriginal governments in there. We are going to have to continue to work along those lines. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A number of weeks ago I wrote a letter to the Minister of Health and Social Services to express to her my concern about a constituent of mine. This constituent had a very severe stroke about 10 months ago. Since that time, he has been cared for at Stanton Territorial Hospital and is currently in the ICU department. I had an opportunity to visit with my constituent last night. His partner is advocating for him. They would like to see him transferred to a facility that could assist him in being the recipient of physical rehabilitation as a result of this stroke. It’s my understanding that there is nothing more that can be done for him at the Stanton hospital. We do not have a neurosurgeon on staff at Stanton. I would like to ask the Minister if there is any encouraging news that I could share with my constituents with respect to this gentleman’s care.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member communicated this to me a couple of weeks ago, I believe. We are in the process of looking into that. Obviously, we don’t normally talk about individual medical situations here, but the Member did provide detailed information about the status of the situation and what the family is looking for. I’d like to just tell the Member that generally it is a practice for us to review a patient’s situation to see if the care being provided is acceptable or good, where we are doing it. If other options should be considered, we will be doing that. So I will confirm with the Member that this situation is being reviewed and what options we have. Given that this person is in ICU, it may be that person needs more ICU care and may not be able to be moved to some of the long-term care facilities.

I realize that we don’t normally discuss the details or specifics of a particular patient or particular constituent, but I believe that this is a situation where someone needs to advocate on behalf of this constituent. He has been in the ICU department of Stanton for 10 months now. It is becoming very stressful for his partner to continue to travel from Hay River every weekend to be with him. His medical circumstances are unique. The family has signed a consent, a waiver, a release for medical information to be shared with myself as MLA. It really speaks to the

desperation of the situation. I appreciate the care that he is getting, but he is going to require very specialized care.

I’d like to ask the Minister what this government’s policy is. It’s my understanding they’re having a difficult time finding a rehab facility that will take him, because at night he’s required to be put on a ventilator and a lot of rehab facilities will only take people who do not require assistance with breathing. For him it’s only during the night when he’s sleeping, when he goes into a deep sleep. If there were a medical facility in the U.S., because I understand that there is a possibility of that, what is our government’s policy with respect to covering the cost of something like that?

Broadly speaking, we will first look at what services we have within the Territories, because we do want to keep our residents in the Territories as much as possible. We do know that we have at least a couple dozen patients from the territories in various jurisdictions all across Canada. I’m not aware of anybody that we have sent to the States. The decision on where to send the person will depend on what comparable services are available and we would try to find care for the patient closest to home as much as possible. So we would first look at southern jurisdictions before we would consider the US.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Short, final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am certainly not a doctor. There may be circumstances about this case that I am not familiar with. Having visited my constituent, he is certainly very alert mentally. He has mobility within his limbs. He can move his arms, he can move his legs, he can respond, nod his head. It seems like the unique and troubling part of it is his inability to continue breathing once he falls into a deep sleep. I know there are medical advances all the time that have to do with neurology. I’m asking the Minister to please commit to attempting to get this patient out of Stanton where he has been languishing -- I mean, he’s receiving good care, but not the kind of care he needs -- for the last 10 months. Would she commit to getting involved personally and seeing if he can be transferred to a facility with more resources?

Yes, I would be happy to do that and get back to the Member as soon as possible.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Member for asking that important question for small communities. We are looking forward to debating this budget that’s before us. There is a new initiative in there that deals directly with employment in small communities. That will result in outstanding challenges or issues in the small communities of hiring, directly hiring summer students that are going back to school. Definitely, I’m looking forward to more opportunities to discuss the budget that’s in the process and this will surely shed some light into the small communities.

I’m assuming that’s to try to get the people in the small communities prepared for employment. I’m wondering if the staff are fully aware of what the employment possibilities are in the communities they serve, considering that the high school diploma rate in small communities is also in the 40 percent range.

Those logistics are still being worked on as we speak. It’s in the planning stages, but certainly those preferences and priorities will be given to the students that are returning to school. We want every student to succeed in our school system and succeed in life as well. At this point all I can say is it’s in the planning stages and, certainly, those considerations will be taken into effect.

I guess just a little bit more background to put a context of what I’m referring to here. Employment income in a place like Lutselk’e is 2.5 times lower than the average employment income in a place like Yellowknife. Are the staff fully equipped -- actually, and I’m wondering about the staff’s abilities here -- to deal with the employment needs in the small communities?

We will continue to work with employment development officers in the communities; also with the organizations we’ll continue to work with. Whether it be client service officers, employment officers in the communities

and the regions we’ll certainly be prepared to deal with the new initiatives that will be before us. We’ll be prepared as much as we can when the time comes.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.