As the Member knows, we’ve recently moved the CEO to a position with Health and Social Services. We have an acting CEO and then there’s going to be a new CEO for Hay River coming on stream within weeks. I’ve had that discussion with all of the Joint Senior Management Committee – that’s all of the CEOs across all of the jurisdictions and some senior staff with Health and Social Services – and made it a priority. One of the top three priorities for the health system is recruitment of doctors.

Plan A for the recruitment of doctors would be to recruit doctors in the communities where they will be working. Plan B would be to move doctors from those communities to live in Yellowknife, but again, our intention is to continue with plan A and push the idea of having doctors brought into a place like Hay River. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister’s answer there and I appreciate the concept, but how much of a priority is it to assist the authority in promotion of the community itself and to get a doctor in place? I understand the concept of a central unit, but obviously in this House we have concerns about decentralization and we want to see that in the communities.

How much is the department pushing the recruitment of doctors in the communities versus a centralized doctor pool?

Thank you. That is the ultimate way to go. We recognize that the doctors will be living in the communities where they’re serving, so that continues to be our push. When I talked to all of the Joint Senior Management Committee a couple of weeks ago, I did talk only about trying to get doctors into a community. The new CEO that will be coming on is very versed in bringing in and talking to doctors and trying to hire doctors and so on. We also have a support system in Health and Social Services that will help the communities and CEOs recruit doctors for their communities. That continues to be the number one priority for us as far as doctor recruitments go. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a follow-up to my Member’s statement earlier today, my questions will be directed to the Minister of Justice.

If my memory serves me correctly, the current Minister of Justice was interested in full-blown whistleblower protection or legislation when he was an Ordinary Member. So there should be no big surprises here in the House today. However, one of the surprises is the lack of progress this government and department has undertaken since tabling a discussion paper on whistleblower protection back in 2007.

Can the Minister of Justice please inform this House why there was little to no action on whistleblower legislation after the 2007 discussion paper? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister of Justice, Mr. Abernethy.

Mr. Speaker, I can’t speak for the actions of a previous government, but I can say that when we came into the 16th Legislative Assembly, whistleblower legislation was a priority for both Regular Members and I as the Minister. Through negotiations with the union, the union requested that we work with them on a memorandum of understanding to put together some joint policies around whistleblowers, which we’re basically used as a pilot study. That work has been done. It was made effective April 1, 2013. I made a commitment that after we ran this program for a year, we’d do a bit of a review, learn lessons from that year and we would move forward with legislation. I will be coming forward with a legislative proposal to committee probably around October 2014, which gives us the year to run the program, a little bit of time to do analysis, which I will absolutely be sharing with my colleagues on both sides of the House and we will be coming forward with the legislation, without question. Thank you.

Thank you. That’s promising news here and I think it’s important that the public hear that as well.

So to truly appreciate what we currently have to protect our public sector, can the Minister please indicate what is the government’s experience so far with the memorandum of agreement with the UNW on whistleblowing within the GNWT? Thank you.

Thank you. The memorandum of understanding and the policy went live on April 1, 2013. We tried to get that

information out as best we could. We’ve included it on our website; we’ve got it out in Bear Facts a number of times. We had a joint letter go out with the UNW to all UNW representatives in the Northwest Territories, and to date, we’ve actually had nobody take us up on this policy and program.

I guess just to pinpoint a little bit of the time flying by that the Minister has just indicated, he has indicated earlier that in October 2014 we should be seeing some type of legislative proposal on this side of the House. Can the Minister indicate as to when we might see a draft proposal at its earliest?

As I’ve indicated, we’re running this program for a year. We’re learning our lessons. We’re getting information. Unfortunately, we haven’t had any uptake on it, but we may. We will take that time from April 1st to the

following October to draft some draft legislation and we will come forward with the legislative proposal and follow the normal legislative process in the Government of the Northwest Territories, and we will definitely have something through the House, hopefully before the end of this government.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I appreciate the Minister’s response there. I guess we all know how government works here when we see a proposal of this nature, large proposals coming really late in the 17th Assembly. Can the

Minister give some reassurances here that we are going to have ample time to have all the amendments in place and to have full-blown whistleblower legislation by the end of our sitting in the 17th Assembly?

I’m committed to taking it through the process. I’ve already made that commitment to the House a number of times both today and previously. We will follow it through the normal legislative process, which includes going to committee, spending 120 days with committee, and then going to the House for, hopefully, first, second and third reading.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Hay River South, Ms. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement today on regional high schools, before I get into my questions, let me just make a clarification. I made a brief reference to my own children coming from Hay River to Yellowknife. I am not advocating for any student from Hay River coming to Yellowknife. It was just an unusual circumstance where they had a parent at both sides of the lake and they took

advantage of an option. I was speaking to the relativity. When you’re from Hay River, Yellowknife’s big. When you’re from Fort Res, Hay River’s big. When you’re from Toronto, Taipei is big. Everything is relative, right?

Getting into my questions, I’d like to ask the Minister responsible for Education if the idea of regional high school education is on the department’s radar in any way. I believe the option should be there for students that want to remain in small communities, but for those who would like an enriched curriculum, a variety of courses and subject material, that this could be available. Is this on the department’s radar?

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Specifically, if it’s on the radar, probably not at this point, but I can certainly raise that issue with the school board chairs. I usually have a meeting with them. Part of the discussion that we’ve been having about grade extension is based on the feedback from the communities, the parents. The parents don’t want their kids to be sent out to regional high school. They’ve had some experience where their children, their students, I guess, would get into whether it be trouble or the substance abuse in the larger communities due to the fact we’ve created these grade extensions into communities. This is an area that we can certainly have discussion with the school board chairs.

In my Member’s statement I was very clear to suggest that this would not be feasible, doable or even desirable if there were not home boarding or residential options available to these students that were sober, supervised, supported and in every way healthy for the children.

The Minister says that parents don’t want their high school students to go to regional centres for the reasons that the Minister stated, and he said that he will speak to the superintendents of education. Could we not perhaps find a way to ask the parents how they feel about that? Because I have run across many parents who feel that their young people do well in the small communities, they get to a certain point, they’re bored, they are feeling like the education system is not challenging them, and they would love an opportunity for their students, for their children to go to a regional centre to go to high school. Is there a way that we could actually canvass the parents to find out if they have an interest in this?

There has been a survey in the past, when we started the discussion on grade extension. We can reopen that dialogue with the communities, especially with the parents. I would like to hear from the parents, the school board chairs, the superintendents, the educators

and the grandparents how they feel about having regional high schools in another part of the community to send their kids over there. By all means, I will be more than happy to have this dialogue happening in the communities through the school board chairs and the school board directors.

I think anything that offers more options to our secondary high school students in the Northwest Territories to make sure they get the best high school education they can, should be looked and should be considered. I would like to ask the Minister, do the education councils at this time have any funding in their budget for one-offs. If a parent came and said, you know what, I would like my child to go from Tuktoyaktuk to attend school in Inuvik, is there funding in budgets right now on an application or one-off basis where parents can have their student or their child attend a regional high school for the cost of travel and home boarding?

More options, I totally agree with that. That’s why we’re looking at various programming such as I mentioned. E-learning is just one of the examples that the Beaufort-Delta has been very successful; also, the tutoring in the South Slave region. Those are just some of the areas that we continue to push.

With respect to some of the areas for funding allocation, we provide funding to DECs, district education councils, on an annual basis, based on enrolment, and part of that has been distributed to district education authorities so they can expend at their pleasure. We provide funding on an annual basis and they decide where the money should be expended.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.