Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to join my colleague from Hay River North and talk about the Great Slave Lake fishery. I too attended the branding exercise that was organized and promoted by Industry, Tourism and Investment and I thank them for that, but we have a ways to go yet.

As most people know, commercial fishing was an integral foundation to the economy in Hay River and we always say that the success of the economy in Hay River is based on how diversified it is.

Industries come and go and sometimes there are good reasons for that. In this particular case there is no reason why we should not still have a very viable commercial fishing industry around Great Slave Lake, headquartered, of course, in Hay River where the majority of fishers live at this time in the West Channel and in the town of Hay River.

I love Great Slave Lake fish. It’s like gold. I think we can say, without anybody challenging us, that it is the best fish in the world. It comes from clear, clean, cold waters and sometimes when I have to go pick up an order of fish for our little diner, I see it in those big buckets all nicely packaged and filleted and it looks like gold to me. When I hear there’s a whole truck gone off to Yellowknife, of course I’m happy for the fishermen, but when you find it, it’s

not like getting 10 pounds of ground beef. It is very special; it’s a beautiful product and it tastes great. It is, as my colleague said, extremely good for us.

So it is a renewable, sustainable, wonderful product. It offsets the cost of living, if we could consume more fish, but we do have a ways to go.

I know the Department of ITI has had many programs and studies in the past to look at how we can enhance the commercial fishery. I know they’ve done everything from buy aluminum hull vessels for the fishermen to take out onto the lakes so they can harvest differently, to… They’ve done a lot of things. I could list a lot of things that have been done over the years, but the bottom line , at the end of the day, is fishing is extremely hard work. We have to find ways to make sure that it is economically viable enough to keep people engaged in the industry.

I’m very pleased that the economic opportunities report did highlight commercial fishing as an industry in the North which does need to be supported and enhanced, and to that end, we do look forward to further initiatives that we know are on the horizon for the commercial fishery on Great Slave Lake. We look forward to seeing those rolled out. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a constituent of mine who just came back from Toronto, I believe, Celine Proctor. I remember her talking about her job. She says, “I just love this job here.” No wonder; you can see it here. So I want to recognize Celine Proctor, Dan O’Neill and the other guests up in the gallery. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Item 6, acknowledgements. Item 7, oral questions. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask the Premier some questions and congratulate the Government of the Northwest Territories and the model of the single window service centre as being formally recognized as an innovative management approach.

I want to ask the Premier, is this type of thinking that is going forward in regards to the type of budget that we’re dealing with that we need some innovative management leadership thinking in our regions? Can this type of model be recognized in the Northwest Territories on a regional level approach, say, in the Sahtu, in regards to how they do business in our region or any other regions in the North?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re always looking at innovative ways to improve the delivery of government services and programs. In this case, with the single window service delivery model, we’re able to do it by converting resources from within.

I always go back to Albert Einstein, who said insanity was where you tried to solve problems by doing the same things over and over again. So this way we can improve our services by doing things differently and innovatively. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This morning I was reading a book and I thought that it would be very unique if the regions got together themselves and sort of formed an innovative, taking the bold steps to improve, as Mr. Premier talked about, ways to improve our efficiency, our government, with the kind of funds that we get, to take the bold steps and even to model after Albert Einstein, one of the great thinkers, to look after how we can do business better in our regions with the amount of money we have, because we’ve always been asking, for example, for a new RCMP or a nurse or, you know, to improve education in our region.

Can that be implemented or looked at in our regions where we can get the thinkers together to say this is how we can do business in the Sahtu and be recognized? Thank you.

I’d be pleased to explore this further with the Member. I think it would be a question of what form would be the best one to use. We have a number of different avenues where we meet with community leaders in the Sahtu, but I’d

be pleased to explore this further with the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

That’s a bold step the Premier is taking. I’d like to ask him, in regards to the forum that we could have some…(inaudible)…could we look at, within the time that we have left in this government, a process, a step-by-step to say this could possibly work in regards to having this type of leadership and creative thinking with improving our efficiency in our government?

As my colleague to the right of me says, we have 286 days left in our mandate, so I’m sure that we can find a day or two to explore this further. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you. I think that’s okay. I want to ask the Premier, with the work that’s going forward and what we’re discussing here, can that somehow go out now to the regional levels to the executive and say that we want to look at this, even just to put ideas together so we can have some further discussions on how we get together in terms of having this type of think-tank in our regions?

I’ll get our crackerjack team together and we’ll come up with some options. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As it stands, the service delivery model does not authorize funding for a full-time nurse in Tsiigehtchic. Last October Minister Abernethy told the House that his department is looking into best practices in other remote areas in Canada and around the world. The purpose, he said, is to access our service delivery model and examine models from other jurisdictions to see how, if at all, they can be applied here in the Northwest Territories.

Minister Abernethy further stated that, “A review of the Integrated Service Delivery Model, medical travel, community health work training and the utilization of telehealth are being incorporated into the review of this review.”

Will the Minister give an update on the status of these reviews and what can be expected in the way of a renewed Service Delivery Model? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The reviews the Member is talking about

are all part of the entire health transformation we’re going through right now where we’re looking at how we’re providing services in all communities throughout the Northwest Territories in order to enhance services. That work is ongoing. The legislation will be coming in front of this House shortly and the planning will continue through to 2016, when we hope to go live.

But at the same time, we’re not just waiting for that to happen. We are implementing Med-Response, which I’ve mentioned several times in the House. We did a soft launch in November and we’re looking at doing a hard launch here in the middle of the month. During the soft launch of that program, we have seen that communities where there are no nurses, CHRs are able to call into that number and get the support and direction they need.

We are trying to do a number of things, and at the same time, we continue to review what other jurisdictions are doing around other types of professionals, community-based professionals, people from the communities that provide services in communities like Tsiigehtchic. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, Minister Abernethy stated in this House that he has been told that one of the major concerns in remote communities is emergency response. He also stated, and he just mentioned, that the department is in the midst of rolling out Med-Response, which will have a direct positive impact on the service delivery in places like Tsiigehtchic.

Can the Minister inform this House when residents of Tsiigehtchic will have access to Med-Response and how can they access it after hours? Thank you.

In addition to Med-Response, I also mentioned some training on first responder training. I know that MACA has already begun delivering training on first responder in Tsiigehtchic. I believe that started in June 2014.

With respect to Med-Response, the residents are not the individuals who would call Med-Response, it would be the professionals in the community; in this case the CHR or CHW that happen to be in Tsiigehtchic. Thank you.

I don’t think the Minister knows some of the situations that the community goes through. Many times a lot of these emergencies are during the evening, even after midnight sometimes.

What can the community do in situations like this? Many times when people phone these numbers for assistance, they are asked to give basically the diagnostics of what the patient is going through. Many of the people that are responding don’t have this medical training. You almost have to be a doctor to get help in our small communities.

What can our communities do in cases like this? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.