We will have the department work to see those various health authorities and ensure that if doctors are needed overnight, if they have more than just one day worth of appointments when they go into a place like Nahanni Butte, Trout Lake or any of those small communities that have too many appointments for one day. I’m not expecting that the doctor would leave a community – I’m sure the community can accommodate the doctor overnight – and will ensure that doctors that go into the community are prepared to stay overnight. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I think part of the issue, too, is that if the flight returns at 4:30, doctors are packing up and leaving at 4:30. They have to have the flexibility and understand the

needs of the community and to stay that extra couple hours or whatever it takes. Thank you.

I agree with that. As I indicated, we will contact the authorities and if doctors need to stay overnight in the small communities, they should. They’ve signed up to work in the small authorities, like the Deh Cho Health and Social Services Authority, they should expect to overnight in the small communities as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I think the point is to plan to stay overnight and not just say the workload is so much here, we have to overnight and that. Also, it’s about improving access to the patients’ files. I can understand it if they’re going to see a patient and they don’t have the proper files from the regional headquarters, but spending an extra night gives the opportunity to fax, phone, or hopefully our electronic medical records get up on-line so they can actually request that it be e-mailed. Thank you.

Thank you. We would look at a planned overnight. If a doctor is going into the communities, they can look at the historical appointments in certain communities and if this has become an issue where patients are being turned away from the health centre, but the doctor still leaves on schedule even though they haven’t seen all the patients and that’s the history of that community, then in the future, when doctors go into small communities, they would plan to stay overnight.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. When the question was first raised in this House, I did respond to the Member’s question, reflecting on our program comparable to other jurisdictions such as Alberta. At that time I did state that we have the best program to subsidize students in the Northwest Territories, comparable to the information that we had at that time. With that, I did commit to this House that we were looking at an overall review of the SFA program and I’m glad to say that we have done that.

The review is before us and I’m going to be tabling that document today, and it does reflect on what we’ve initiated so far. I believe there are two or three key topics of recommendations that we’ve followed up already. What the Member is referring to is also part of the recommendations as a long-term strategy to work towards. So I need to work with standing committee on which are the priority areas and how we can move forward together. So that’s what I’ll be working towards with the standing committee. Mahsi.

I’m not advocating that we take anything away from our students, but this government has been providing non-Aboriginal students with six years of forgivable loans on the backs of the Aboriginal students.

When is the Minister going to fix this problem that the former Minister of Education, Culture and Employment created so that the Aboriginal students can once again obtain a master’s and a PhD degree?

Mahsi. Again, that information will be before this House as a public document, and as we move forward, those are recommendations to me, as the Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, on Student Financial Assistance. So in order to start implementing those, we need to find the funds, and I need to work with the standing committee to find those funds and which are the priority areas. So I am committing to working with the Members across the floor to highlight and identify which of the recommendations we should be going after first, second or third and so forth over a short-term and long-term strategy. That’s the commitment I’ve made. Mahsi.

Thank you. Is the Minister aware that in Alberta people from the Northwest Territories with Indian status are eligible under the post-secondary funding program and that they are eligible for grants for an undergraduate degree, a

master’s degree and a PhD degree for a combined maximum of 80 months, or eight years of financing? I repeat, this is eight years of grants, not loans.

Would the Minister see this as an opportunity for us to improve our education funding for students under grants?

Mahsi. We did look into Alberta and southern jurisdictions, their student financial assistance. Again, our program is much better than what they provide. I’ll give you an example.

As I stated on March 12, 2009, the limitation of $50,000 for a loan limit in other jurisdictions. Ours was $47,000. We increased it to $60,000 so at least we can service a master’s student. So we are improving our program every time and, again, with the recommendations that were brought to my attention from the general public, from the students, from the parents and also from Regular Members, we will be following through with those recommendations on a long-term basis. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

I challenge the Minister to come back next session with a plan for changes to the Student Financial Assistance program that adds another level of funding so that Aboriginal students can get the funds to obtain a master’s and a PhD degree. Will the Minister commit to that?

Mahsi. What I can commit to in this House is that I will be working with the standing committee to identify, as we move forward on the business planning process, which areas we need to highlight as a priority for this government. Also for the Regular Members, I want to share their perspective, because we have 18 recommendations. Unfortunately, we can’t implement them all next year or the following year, but we can at least capture two or three that we can move forward on. So I’m committed to doing that. I’ll be working closely with standing committee on a move forward basis. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to continue today with my questions to focusing on my Member’s statement, which was the concerns regarding the caribou surveys and their numbers.

The Minister of Environment and Natural Resources provided a statement and he talked about the numbers; three out of the four groups were increasing, one is decreasing, as well as he showed clearly that two groups we were unable to fully survey to get a sense. He did highlight that

there was a problem. I’d like to say he skipped over predation pretty quickly in one of his statements on trying to focus as a solution, as well as we all know the impacts on the First Nations, residents and outfitter hunting.

So what brings me to my question is with all this discussion and concern built around the numbers, what are the target numbers that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources is working towards that is clear and transparent so that everyone can fully appreciate and understand what we’re working towards and trying to achieve before normalized hunting can return? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That process is now going to be underway. We’ve stabilized the fall. The numbers went from almost 500,000 in the 1980s down to 32. There has been a modest recovery from that point within our margin for error. The co-management boards, and all the biologists, and all the people on the boards will be looking at that management plan. The Wek’eezhii board plan is good for another year, which we have signed off on and agreed with. Their job, in terms of the Bathurst, is to review that and they will determine based on the science, the numbers, the feedback from the traditional knowledge and the communities as well, recognizing that there’s more than just the basic numbers. We talked about cow/calf recruitment, the herd, and the health of the females, and those types of things. It’s a complicated issue and they have to look at all those variables.

I can’t disagree with the Minister when he says it’s more than just about the basic numbers. I would like to know what positive effects, other than just banning caribou hunting, the department has proposed. What I mean by that is, has the Minister, or working with the boards or co-management partners, have they proposed anything such as hunting more wolves, any type of activities that will help increase the population? To be frank, waiting for the caribou to repopulate themselves to their old numbers may take a generation of our lifetime, not the caribou’s lifetime.

If we look at the Bluenose-East, the numbers went from 60 to roughly, our best estimate based on the information we do have in terms of cow/calf recruitment and such, to we think up to 100,000 in a relatively short period of time. The Bathurst, one of the biggest impacts was, of course, the harvest. It’s one of the most heavily populated areas of the Northwest Territories. It was a herd that was used by all the folks around Yellowknife, all the folks in the South Slave, some from Deh Cho. In addition to that, there were clearly some issues with warming

temperatures and such that were affecting travel. Some concerns were there about possible impacts of winter roads and such. Overall, the issue of wolves is not one that is seen as a major factor where we would want to go in and start doing a wolf cull, if that is what the Member is suggesting.

Well, first I should be clear that I’m not suggesting anything, because I’m not a wildlife biologist. All I can suggest is, I’ve heard from other people who make suggestions of that type of manner, that is the right choice. I will leave it up to the biologists to make that determination. I again ask the question of what stopped us from putting numbers on the table to this point of saying when we reach a certain number, whether it’s 35,000 for the Bathurst or, for example, maybe 2,500 for the Cape Bathurst, then we can open up to residents and outfitters, as well as return to traditional hunting levels for Aboriginal people.

What has stopped us from getting to that type of number and description, as well as full transparency on this process? As I’ve said repeatedly, if nobody knows what they’re working towards, nobody knows what the government’s doing on this particular issue and they assume it’s nothing. They will never get to hunt again.