Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as we know, moving forward with the 258 beds by 2026, there is going to significant demand for long-term care staff, which does include RNs, but will include more things like residential care aides and other individuals who will be providing support in that hospital. Currently, Aurora College does provide that training. They have delivered that course up in Inuvik, and it was well-attended and the results were fantastic.

I am happy to be working with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment to explore opportunities to train for what could amount to hundreds of jobs and hundreds of positions and hundreds of people to fill those long-term care positions in the Northwest Territories. I have previously said to the Member for Hay River that long-term care in Hay River could result in as many as 60 new jobs; jobs that don't exist today. It could result in as many as 60 jobs in Inuvik and the Beaufort Delta, easily that many here in Yellowknife, and dozens more in the Sahtu or in the Deh Cho, in Fort Simpson in particular; real jobs for people of the Northwest Territories.

We are committed to finding ways to train. I am looking forward to working with Education, Culture and Employment, as well as Aurora College and Indigenous partners to find some ways to train local people for local work.

I would like to thank the Minister for that response. Can the Minister develop a plan for turning Stanton into a long-term care school? What I am looking for, Mr. Speaker, is just a plan that lays out what is possible, that sort of plan that maybe the Regular Members could see.

The plan at this point in time is to utilize the existing Stanton building for a number of different services, including 72 long-term care beds, a number of extended care beds, some area for outpatient services in areas of OT/PT, as well as a clinic.

When it comes to training local people for local work, Aurora College has been a fantastic provider of both nursing training here in the Northwest Territories as well as training for things like resident care aides. All of those training opportunities require practical or clinical placements, and the Department of Health and Social Services and the territorial authority have been fantastic opportunities for these students to go into frontline services and practice these things. We anticipate that to be the case. There is a lot of work that needs to be done to determine where these clinical placements may occur. It may be possible that clinical placements in places like Hay River and the Beaufort Delta, as well as Norman Wells, when that facility opens, might also be apt opportunities for our local people to get local training and local experience.

I am prepared to explore all possibilities. I am happy to work with committee as we start to formalize what some of that might look like, and I am also happy to be working with Indigenous partners to find some real meaningful solutions to train local people for local work.

I would like to ask the Minister if, at some point, there would likely be a need for some capital to turn the current Stanton into a long-term care and extended care facility. There would be some need for capital. I would like to ask the Minister if they could look towards maybe looking at the capital needs of a school in that facility while they are looking at the capital needs to turn it into a long-term care and extended care facility.

Mr. Speaker, the retrofitting of the old building will be the responsibility of the property manager, bringing it up to a state that we need to meet those needs. There is not necessarily room available in Stanton for a separate school once you actually factor in all the things that we are hoping to put in there, which, as I said, includes 72 long-term care beds, a large number of extended care beds, OT/PT outpatient, as well as clinic services and a kitchen and whatnot to support those services that would be provided in that building.

Currently, when it comes to the nursing program at Aurora College, the nurses actually do spend a significant amount of time in the facilities that exist on a preceptorship or mentorship basis. That will continue and will not require additional infrastructure should long-term care support and training be offered by Aurora College. I think there is lots of room for those clinical placements and for those opportunities for Northerners to gain northern experience and opportunity so that they could go back to the jobs that will exist in the Northwest Territories once long-term care rolls outs.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions to the Minister about working with Education, looking at developing a plan, and looking at the capital needs of that facility. I would like to ask the Minister if he is prepared to create a working group headed by a senior official of his department to work with other departments to turn that facility into a school, if that is as possible, and to ensure that that project is kept on the front burner. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We are going to be utilizing that building for long-term care, extended care, as well as outpatient services, as I have previously indicated. There is no plan at this point to turn it into a university or a college, but we do accept, and I agree with the Member that there is a great opportunity to do some on-site training for individuals in partnership with something like Aurora College or some of our Indigenous partners who might want to pursue training.

The training will likely occur there, but it should also occur in places like the Beaufort Delta and in Hay River and Simpson, and places where we will need some of our individuals. Clinical placements will happen where the beds exist, which includes Yellowknife.

I am prepared to work with Education, Culture and Employment. We need to. We need work with our Indigenous partners. We have a little bit of time to figure out how we are going to do this. We know that we are going to have to train significant numbers of people in this territory, and we are prepared to work with whoever we need to to get this done, to get it done right, to train local people for local work. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.