Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In keeping with the direction provided in 2010 which basically established that PWS would be responsible for providing operations and maintenance services to buildings owned and operated by the GNWT, eventually when the building is completed, the maintenance of the new facility, the boilers and structural maintenance will be done by Public Works and Services. We in Health and Social Services believe that there are a number of residual functions, maintenance functions that should be retained by the authority and by the health system, maintenance specific to technical equipment and other factors in the authority and in the new building.
We have been working with the authority. We have been working with Public Works and Services to identify what some of those residual functions will be. We’re really not going to finalize that list until we start moving into the new building to see what some of the actual realities of being in that new building are. In the meantime, we’re also going to keep the existing H.H. Williams open for a period of time because the extended care residents will stay there until such time as we’ve done the upgrades to Woodland Manor.
We know that Public Works is going to be doing the maintenance. We have approached the staff to see if any of them are interested in moving over to Public Works and Services, if they could be part of that structural maintenance team. But in the meantime, we still have the role for the maintenance staff that we have to maintain the existing buildings in that authority as well as to maintain the existing authority.
We have a bit of time to work through the details with our staff, and we have been working with the union and the Hay River Health and Social Services
Authority to find the most reasonable and appropriate methods to resolve these issues.