Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not familiar with what details that concept entails, but if the Member would like to provide me with that information, we will have a further look at it. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to provide a copy of my Member’s statement I made today as well as a copy of the House of Commons’ position on a seniors charter. Mr. Speaker, knowing full well that this issue has never specifically been brought up in the government certainly in my time, is the Minister saying clearly she would be willing to take this issue, address this issue and bring it to the Cabinet table to work towards developing an NWT seniors charter? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I wouldn’t be the responsible Minister, or the Member would be responsible if we were to make decisions without having at least some information about what it is we are being asked to take a position on. I am interested in getting the information from him as to what he has in mind, understanding that different ideas about overarching or comprehensive sorts of models on seniors was introduced before. I think we are also aware, though, that seniors’ issues, whether it be housing, fuel subsidy, health benefits, touch so many different departments that I don’t know if it is just something we need to look further into. I would be happy to, once again, say what I

said before, take a look at what he has in mind and then we could have a position. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the answer from the Minister, the willingness to pursue something new and different. Mr. Speaker, does the Minister see a problem in the existing state of affairs where seniors’ issues are spread out throughout the government without a clear mandate or a coordinating role, and that being said, a Minister directly responsible for seniors and elders program? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the Member that the programs are spread out, but I don’t think it is there without mandate. I think all of our seniors programs have specific programming and criteria mandate that are housed in responsible divisions and sections.

Mr. Speaker, once again, I am interested in looking at what he has in mind. Maybe it is something that the Standing Committee on Social Programs can take a look at as well. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to seeing what he has. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member’s statement earlier, leading up to these questions, made a number of comments about secret negotiations and so on. I will say for the record that there were no secret negotiations. All bilateral discussions that may have happened between the GNWT and the federal government, specifically because there are areas that we clearly are for or would be, those issues and discussions were shared at the main table with all of the partners that were at the table.

As for signing this agreement, there are many things to be negotiated as we go forward. One of those is the escalation of the dollars identified for doing the work that would be required of us as the Government of the Northwest Territories.

The negotiations up to establishing the numbers for the initial transfer were very intense, as we clearly

stated that we felt, under the existing authorities, we need to do a job that would require more resources than is being expended now. We have that agreement. In fact, that is one of the reasons why we would say that we are in agreement with signing this.

Other areas that are of concern to many of the Aboriginal groups, as well, are around waste sites and monitoring and management. There is a chapter 8 that goes through quite a number of issues that look at addressing what we would do as we enter into negotiations. I think this is another reason why having the Aboriginal groups and governments come back to the table to help influence the discussions is probably one of the biggest things, since we hold our environment in such high regard in the North. That would be one of those that would draw us back to the table, I would say. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, what is the Government of the Northwest Territories doing to ensure that the waste sites that are listed or that are contemplated in such devolution agreement in the future are cleaned up in a timely fashion? What is the time frame for this? Is this going to go on forever or is there going to be a time frame for a clean-up of these waste sites? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, by signing the agreement-in-principle, we actually kick in the year of process that has been under discussion for quite some time. We have already done a fair bit of work in the North around waste sites that are there, looking at historical programs that were run under previous and ministrations and decisions made under previous governments, federal governments as well. That is why there has been such an emphasis put on this document. It triggers the work that needs to be done. For example, in the responsibility of waste sites, chapter 8, point 3 talks about Canada will be responsible for management of waste sites on public lands which were wholly created prior to the effective date and it speaks of what our responsibility would be after the effective date of final agreement, and then it goes into a lot of detail about some of those subject areas. But, clearly, by signing the agreement-in-principle, we also trigger work that is going to be done on clearly establishing what is out there and comparing that work. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, my last question is the area of time frames. There is a possibility inside the devolution agreement that these sites could be just left as is for extended periods of time. Also, in the economic measures in the AIP, they indicate that economic measures could be accrued to Aboriginal governments. This is an opportunity for Aboriginal governments to clean up with the GNWT at the federal government cost to clean up those

sites. Why isn’t the government insisting that the federal government take responsibility in a kindly fashion for cleaning up industrial sites established under their control since 1984? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the identification and the categorization of waste sites, those were decisions made by previous governments that, as I said, the preliminary work was done. Quite clearly, we leave the responsibility for decisions made by the federal government prior to the signing of the final agreement is their responsibility needing to go forward, but they still have to share that work with us and come up with a budget that we would have to negotiate on dealing with the full remediation of those sites or that they would remain holding onto the liability of those sites. For example, by signing the agreement-in-principle, Canada will develop at its own expense a preliminary inventory of waste sites, and in compiling such preliminary inventory, they will have to share that initial summary with us through their own historical records and current records and we will, as well, do our own work in reviewing that. That will help us as we go forward and coming up with the right negotiation for dollars in remediation going forward and who holds onto that liability going forward. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Dene people see this as a loophole by the federal government. It does not seem fair when the federal government designed and implemented a regulatory system, will take 50 percent of the royalties on these developments but won’t pay for the cleanups. This is a loophole. Why is there no definite plan in place to place full responsibility for the remediation that’s needed on the federal government? Thank you.

Thank you. Clearly, we know the importance of our environment to northern peoples and that is why so much effort has been placed through the working group of our Aboriginal partners and the Government of the Northwest Territories. We’ve learned from some of our own previous transfers and transfers to other provinces and territories, in making sure we’ve set up a process that will clearly identify the challenges, the risks, the liabilities and who they belong to. So as the Member is saying, why haven’t we done that? That work is about to be done because we’ve signed the AIP. Otherwise, we would continue to work on the basis we have in the past of identifying those sites.

The federal government has remediated a number of sites across the North and are in the process of remediating sites as we speak in a number of areas. So that work continues, but as we now, through the signing of this agreement-in-principle,

will be able to clearly identify going forward into the future what those challenges are, what the risks are and who should hold onto the liability and then the budgets of what needs to be done going forward in that area. So we do place a high priority on this.

Again, when it comes to the identification, we talk about this preliminary inventory of waste sites in the Northwest Territories, talk about the location, the nature of the site, the summary of information going to Canada about the waste site, including location, former use, current use or status, known operation, groundwater analysis. So many things will begin to be shared by Canada with us and they will have to share such information with all the parties. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve got questions today for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Getting back to my Member’s statement where I was talking about northern nursing grads, this year we’re expecting to graduate 19 and next year 16 and then in 2013, 32. So we’re going to have close to 65 northern nursing grads enter into our health care system hopefully in the next three years.

I’d like to ask the Minister, it was almost four years ago she went to Aurora College and spoke to the students just entering the program, promising them jobs upon completion of the program. I’d like to ask her what planning has gone into help integrate northern nursing grads into our health care system. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There’s no question that our Northern Nursing Program is a success story. We have produced a lot of excellent graduates and the last fiscal year we were able to place all 11 of them; nine of them in Yellowknife and two in Hay River. So, Mr. Speaker, I’m confident that we will be able to use the training that these nurses have received in various communities and health centres and hospitals around the Territories. Thank you.

Thank you. I hope the Minister can appreciate the fact that these graduates are months away from completing the program, yet when they look at the government website and any job postings, there are just none available and they’re left scratching their head saying, well, the Minister was here three years ago and promised us jobs, where are they? Then they see locum and agency

nurses working in our health authorities and at Stanton and they wonder where are the postings. I’d like to ask the Minister if she can explain the fact that we have these locum and agency nurses here and no job postings for nurses. Thank you.

Thank you. We are in communication with the graduating class of nurses at Aurora College. They are made aware that they wouldn’t be applying for jobs on the website, that they will be eligible to join the Graduate Employment Program process, that we will have a list of jobs available for them. HR and HSSA, Department of Health staff, are going in there to talk to the nursing graduates and we will be working with them to find placements for them. They will be asked to give their preference of what communities they would like to practice in. We want to match those, but those are not always possible.

This is an NWT employment program. The Graduate Employment Program is an NWT program, this is Government of the NWT. We would like to recruit and retain nurses to work in all parts of the Territories, so we are fully committed to working with the nursing grads to match them with employment. Thank you.

Thank you. It sounds like as far as the department is concerned, it’s a year-to-year process and they just take each year as it comes. I’m not sure if coming up with a better plan and a long-range plan to accommodate, like I said, 65 grads in the next three years might be something that’s worthwhile to the department and to this government. I’d like to ask the Minister, does the Department of Health and Social Services and the health authorities consider positions that are currently filled by locums and agency nurses to be vacant and why aren’t those positions posted? Thank you.