Late in the life of the last government, it was decided to move the Hay River authority into the public service because there were unknown things at play. There was no finalized collective agreement with the UNW for GNWT employees. There was also no finalized collective agreement with the Hay River employees. It left a lot of questions up in the air as far as what exists in one body, what exists in the other, and how do we make those come across seamlessly so that we don’t adversely affect the employees. At that time, I accepted that logic because we didn’t know those things, but I also believed at that time that it was going to happen much faster than it has as far as reaching some terms on collective agreements.
I’ve had an opportunity to travel to Hay River. I’ve seen the challenges that the Member has raised and I agree wholeheartedly with what the Member is saying. I’ve made commitments to Hay River in the past in the previous Assembly and again in this Assembly, but this is something that we must do. Rather than waiting for the collective agreements to be done, I’ve already directed the department to do an updated analysis on what it would cost but also to develop a plan on how we can move forward prior to having these agreements concluded so that we can move forward to find a way to bring health units in the Hay River into the public service. This is something that I’d like to see happen. This is something that many of us would like to see happen, but we have to be cognizant of the fact that it is going to cost a large amount of money. We’re going to have to work together to find that money if we intend to move forward with Hay River.