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

Mr. Speaker, if I go back to the Auditor General report of 2011, it indicated a recommendation of regularly informing the Legislative Assembly about the performance of the Northwest Territories health care systems and the department replied, “Agreed. Developing an ongoing system of reporting and evaluation is a priority.” It if is a priority, we have not seen this.

So again to the question, when will the department provide to the Members and to the public an ongoing system of reporting and evaluation as they promised four years ago? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, for the third time, May 2015. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right; we are always looking for creative new ways to provide valuable services in our communities and we want to make sure that our residents, regardless of the community they live, have access to these services that we provide. So, we are looking at different ways to provide those services.

Right now we do provide nursing services in Wrigley. We have a CHN in there for three to four days a month. We also have a CHN who spends four weeks twice a year in there during freeze-up. I do hear the Member that the Member and the community want to have more people in there. We’re always interested in ideas Members have.

But one area that I can talk about is we are exploring the opportunity of finding a way to train local people to do local work and to provide some degree of health services, similar to models we might see in Alaska or BC. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

That’s a nice, unique idea. I think the department may be on to something if they consider making communities like Wrigley a training ground for nursing students. A nursing student could get valuable hands-on experience and Wrigley residents could relax in the knowledge that someone is always on hand.

Will the Minister consider that idea seriously? Thank you.

It’s an intriguing idea and it’s certainly something that I’ll bring up with the department. My only concern with that particular approach is a nursing student isn’t a nurse, and I’d be nervous about having them in the community alone without the supervision of another community health nurse or a nurse in charge. But it’s certainly something that we will look at. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I mentioned in my statement earlier, the Department of Health and

Social Services is in the process of streamlining the health system.

What cost saving does the Minister anticipate, and will these savings permit the department to revise the service delivery model? Especially, can the Minister ensure that even the smallest community will have year-round nursing services? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we are looking forward to improving the provision of health and social services in the Northwest Territories and one of the areas that has been identified as an opportunity to reduce some of the duplication of services and find some economies of scale, which should allow us some more freedom to provide a greater degree of front-line services throughout the Northwest Territories including in the smaller communities throughout the Northwest Territories. Will that be nurses or will that be some other creative solution that we’ve worked on with the communities so that those needs are met, I can’t say, but we are doing that work and I look forward to working with committee and residents of the Northwest Territories as we explore those solutions and those opportunities. Thank you.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Back in the ‘70s when there was an established nursing station and RCMP in Wrigley, one of the reasons was because the industry was moving north. They were going to build a pipeline, they were going to develop the Mackenzie Highway, and in fact, some of those things are happening today as we talk about the developing Sahtu oilfields.

Will the Minister consider in their planning, about returning nursing to the community of Wrigley? Thank you.

The changing landscape and the changing of communities is something that we do factor in as we’re planning and trying to make sure that we’re providing services. Things like the Mackenzie Highway, if it goes up through Wrigley into the Sahtu, that’s certainly going to change the realities for Wrigley as well as all the work that may come with that.

So those are certainly things that we’re factoring, certainly things we’re considering and things that we will address to make sure that the needs of our residents are met. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Following up on my Member’s statement about the

Energy Charrette, I’ll have questions for the Minister of ENR and the Minister of Finance I guess. But I guess the first question I have: Do they have the estimated costs of this Energy Charrette?

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s in the neighbourhood of about $120,000 I believe. Thank you.

As we left this afternoon, the charrette was looking over the review of the budget.

Is this government committed to shifting gears if the charrette group indicates that we need to shift some of our funding arrangements right now? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I indicated, we continue to spend millions of dollars a year, but a lot of the items that we’re talking about are going to be dependent on the resolution of our borrowing limit discussions with the federal government. Pending that successful conclusion, we are absolutely committed to investing significant amounts of money to engage in this transformational change. Thank you.

Thank you. Can the Minister indicate are we done doing the studying, are we done doing planning, are we looking to put money on the ground in the communities in renewable resources to reduce the cost of living in the Northwest Territories?

Thank you. Yesterday I posed a number of questions. We are committed to looking at the whole range of things that need to be looked at as we do this type of change. It’s the putting projects on the ground, the mix of biomass and solar, potentially wind, batteries, diesel, liquid natural gas if it makes sense. We need to look at the rate structures, we need to look at the governance models, and as we look at those issues we have to look at the regulatory function. As well, we need to identify, I would suggest on a go forward basis as we move more fully into these alternative energy technologies, the legislation that will govern the application of biomass, the wind and the solar so that they have the same kind of framework and comfort that oil and gas folks currently have as they do the work they do. Thank you.

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

The Minister is an experienced politician and I ask that question again. Is this government committed to reducing the cost of living to Northerners?