I don’t expect the Minister to have this information immediately at hand, but I wonder if

he could provide us how many nurse practitioner positions there are in Yellowknife, in the regional centres and in other communities that are vacant at this time.

Just from memory I do believe there are two larger communities that have nurse practitioner positions. One is filled and the rest of the nurse practitioner positions are actually located in Yellowknife, but I don’t know how many of those are actually earmarked as nurse practitioner positions, off the top of my head.

Thanks for that immediate info. I appreciate the Minister’s response there. I wonder if the Minister could just confirm that and give us that information for each of our regional centres at least, including Yellowknife. The added aspect I’m interested in is the number of nurse practitioners who are hired in the Northwest Territories and where they are who are not in nurse practitioner jobs. I’d like to find out what the size of our resource is that we’re not using very well, for whatever reason, then we can explore that.

Yes, I can provide that information to the Member and the House.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to talk a little bit today about the concentration of specialized services in Yellowknife, when there are other communities outside of Yellowknife which are large enough and have great enough need to have some capital infrastructure to address some of these things.

In Yellowknife we have Betty House, Bailey House, the new dementia facility, a complex that completely accommodates people who require barrier-free access; a whole complex downtown Yellowknife for people who have physical disabilities who require barrier-free access. We have women’s shelters, we have all kinds of services here. These services and this infrastructure obviously came about as a result of a very organized and concerted effort on the part of organizations, NGOs, volunteers, fundraisers, which you have a lot to draw on here in Yellowknife. There are a lot of very community-minded people in Yellowknife and I believe that these facilities have come on stream as a result of those efforts.

But we have communities outside of Yellowknife. We don’t want to have to tell our people that if they want these services, move to Yellowknife. We have homelessness in Hay River as well.

I’d like to ask the Premier how we get our proposals for infrastructure on the table. Do we need to form community groups to put together proposals to appeal to the government for the millions of dollars that they get here in Yellowknife? What is our access? What is our avenue to this kind of support? We do need these and we can sustain these facilities outside of the capital.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re open to receiving any proposals that are brought forward by volunteers and non-government organizations and we would review them. In this particular case referencing Betty House, our government is only one contributor and generally the operator of the facility will be a non-government organization. In this case we found a way through the Building Canada Economic Action Plan to assist. I think in every instance we would try to find a way to assist.

If we were to take the population of Hay River and the population of Yellowknife and also examine the need for something like a homeless shelter in Hay River, probably on a ratio on population even, you could probably get a house – a smaller house than Betty House or Bailey House – in a community like Hay River or Fort Smith probably for $500,000 or $600,000. I want to take a clear message back to my constituents in Hay River. If we form a volunteer organization in Hay River that can identify the need, and identify a location and we fill out a proposal, is this government willing to entertain a similar facility in Hay River on a smaller scale?

Recognizing that the government contribution to Betty House is only a small portion, we would be prepared to entertain something on a similar basis percentage wise, I’m sure.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mrs. Groenewegen. Item 8, written questions. Item 9, returns to written questions. Item 10, replies to opening address. Item 11, petitions. Item 12, reports of standing and special committees. Item 13, reports of committees on the review of bills. Item 14, tabling of documents. Item 15, notices of motion. Item 16, notices of motion for first reading of bills. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Wednesday,

February 15, 2012, I will move that Bill 2, Interim Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), 2012-2013, be read for the first time.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Item 17, motions. Item 18, first reading of bills. Item 19, second reading of bills. Item 20, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters: Tabled Document 2-17(2), Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 3, 2011-2012; and Tabled Document 3-17(2), Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 3, 2011-2012, with Mrs. Groenewegen in the chair.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Committee wishes to consider Tabled Document 2-17(2) and Tabled Document 3-17(2).

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Does committee agree?

Thank you. We will resume, then, after a short break.

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I’ll call Committee of the Whole back to order. Today we’ve agreed to consider Tabled Document 3-17(2), Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 3, 2011-2012. I’d like to ask Minister Miltenberger if he would like to present his opening comments.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am here to present Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 3, 2011-2012. This document outlines an increase of $14.817 million in operations expenditures for the 2011-2012 fiscal year.

The major items included in the supplementary estimates are:

1. $3.335 million for the Department of Health and

Social Services to provide contribution funding to the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority and the Stanton Territorial Health Authority for extraordinary costs that contributed to the accumulated deficits in these authorities. This amount will be fully offset by accumulated operating surpluses in other health and social services authorities.

2. $2.938 million for the Department of Health and

Social Services to provide contribution funding to the Stanton Territorial Health Authority for costs associated with the purchase of blood products from Canadian Blood Services.

3. $2.126 million for the Department of Health and

Social Services for increased costs associated with children in residential care outside of the Northwest Territories.

4. $1.739 million for the NWT Housing Corporation

to fund increases in the costs for utilities in public housing units.

5. $944,000 for the Department of Education,

Culture and Employment to fund the projected shortfall in the Income Assistance Program for the 2011-12 fiscal year.

6. $835,000 for the Department of Education,

Culture and Employment to fund the increased costs in the Student Financial Assistance Program.

I am prepared to review the details of the supplementary estimates document.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. I’d now like to ask the Minister if he’d like to bring witnesses into the Chamber.

Yes, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Does committee agree?