Mr. Chair, it has taken a while to recruit, while we’re still proving to be unsuccessful in Fort Smith and we continue to move there.

We can’t recruit midwives in Yellowknife without job descriptions. Given that it’s going to be a territorial model and the midwives are going to have some responsibility not just in Yellowknife but on a territorial level, it is going to require different job descriptions because the scope of work is going to

be different. We need to have job descriptions. We need to outline and clarify what that scope of work is going to be and how it’s going to work so we can draft effective job descriptions so that they can be properly evaluated. All of this does take a little bit of time. To go out and do recruitment with no job descriptions, no position numbers and no description of work is not possible. Also, we won’t be able to tell the individuals we’re recruiting what their scope of work is.

What we can do and what we’re constantly doing is we’re out there promoting the role of midwives in the Northwest Territories and we’ll continue to do that. We’ll be out at recruitment fairs, encouraging midwives to look at the Northwest Territories. The information about where we’re going with the territorial program will be shared with as many midwives as we can find, so that when we are ready to recruit, hopefully there will already be some interest established to come to Yellowknife to provide midwifery support and services on a territorial level.

The Member is right; there are multiple models out there. As we move to a single authority there is going to be an opportunity to start having these different programs meld together, work together to provide a comprehensive service throughout the Northwest Territories recognizing that there are going to be some differences from community to community and region to region.