Mr. Speaker, there are a number of Northerners who actually pursued medicine and received some of the bursaries that we have available, but most of them are still in school. We’ve actually discontinued the bursaries because we’ve done a bit of an analysis and there wasn’t a lot of value for money. A lot of the people that we were supporting weren’t coming back to the Northwest Territories. So we’re exploring new ways to work with these students to find ways to make sure that they do come back to the Northwest Territories, and that is part of the review that we’re doing and the information that will be coming forward to the Member and committee in December. Thank you.

Under the direction of our previous Minister of Health and Social Services, the government and the department took action to establish a pool of physicians that they had spoken about locating in Yellowknife either as locums or as regular resident physicians that they would then deploy to the communities and to the health authorities who needed that support.

Could the Minister please tell us what’s the status of that program? Thank you.

That work has been done. All the physicians in the Northwest Territories are under one employer, and we’re able to send physicians from different locations to different locations as needed.

We actually had a happy surprise out of that program. When we created that program it was because we were having difficulty actually recruiting any doctors to the communities. Since we’ve put in that program – and the doctors, regardless of where they are located, have privileges to Stanton and have a larger body of professionals that they get to collaborate with on a regular basis – we’ve actually been lucky enough to actually fill some positions in Hay River, Fort Smith and Inuvik and part of it’s about this bigger relationship that the doctors are a part of a larger team, as opposed to being a member of a team of one in Hay River. Now they’re part of a territorial team. It’s actually worked out in ways we didn’t anticipate, for the positive.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister, is the recruitment of

physicians and locums currently something that is done at the local health authority level or is it something that’s done by the department?

It is not done by the department. It is done by the authorities, but the authorities are working together as appropriate.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As you know, this is the second year in the Mackenzie Delta that ferry services are operating during the winter months. I’d like to ask the Minister of Transportation for an update on the ferry services at this time.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department is continuing to work on both the ice bridge and getting the ferry across. We were able to get the ferry across once either today or late yesterday.

That’s great compared to the progress we did last year. I’d like to ask the Minister, when does he see us actually transporting vehicles across on the ferry?

I would hate to venture a guess. I’m hoping that as soon as possible, when the department is comfortable to have made their way across once. I think it is just a matter of the ice conditions, some parts of the ice that was still fairly soft, to be able to make it into a fairly solid area for the ferry to pass through, so we’re hoping that that part of the ice strengthens up a bit and at that point the cut area should remain open.

It’s been brought to my attention that the reason there’s no service right now is because of overflow or high water levels. I’d like to ask the Minister, is the department looking at making a landing structure for vehicles to drive on?

The department will be doing everything to facilitate vehicles getting onto the ferry. I don’t know the exact specifics of whether or not they are going to have to create a separate area for landing or boarding the vehicles onto the ferry, but I can get that information for the Member if he wishes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A lot of this is to have more LNG to the community of Inuvik. I’d like to ask the Minister, when does he expect the first truck of LNG to arrive in Inuvik?

I believe that we will be able to move vehicles quickly and within probably the next day or two. I don’t think there are any weight issues with the ferry, so when the LNG vehicles arrive that need to get across, we should be able to transport them across the ferry at that point.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The recommendation from the Auditor General was to develop a set of system-wide performance indicators for the purposes of regularly informing the public about the performance of the NWT health and social services system. We have established and put into place 32 indicators, which I would be happy to share with the Member and then committee. These indicators have been selected through an extensive system-wide consultation with decision-makers and experts and they reflect national best practices.

The information collection has already begun. Initial information collection for the…(inaudible)…report is estimated to be complete during November, so we are in the middle of putting that information together. I believe we will be tabling that report in the May-June session of this Assembly. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, let me remind the Members that this department has promised this and failed more times than we can count, although I do welcome what we have just heard here of potentially 32 indicators that we might see in the

May-June sitting. Accountability performance measures are really the backbone for an effective delivery of health care, especially in best practice.

Again, I ask the Minister, why are we seeing such a delay for so many years? Thank you.

Doom and Gloom is a great Rolling Stones song but it’s not really appropriate here. The indicators are in place. We are collecting the data. The data will be compiled and will be provided to the Members. I can’t say why it wasn’t done before. I have been the Minister for just over a year now and this information will be out in May-June, just like I said. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Minister knows very well this is not doom and gloom. The Minister realizes that our front-line workers and our decision-makers continually work in a vacuum, not knowing where they stand on policy or what is considered national best practice.

So again to the question, how does the department measure our performance nationally when we only produce today about five or so of the best indicators over a list of, nationally, up to 40 recognized benchmarks? Thank you.