Thank you. I appreciate the answer. I guess the biggest concern I have is I know in Wrigley, as the community has told me, it has been based on a casual basis, and they are really concerned with trying to understand why it is not being indeterminate half-time positions, so I guess that is a question I ask the authority. Or do I ask you, as the Minister, to find that information out? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Mr. Chair, I will get that information for the Member on the five half-time positions that were created in the Nahendeh riding and get back to the Member.

Thank you. Mr. Thompson.

Thank you. Minister.

Yes. Thank you. Yes, the Member is correct. This is the right area; it is under population health. Just going back to the other question, yes, I have met the Member from Deh Cho. He is a pretty reasonable person. I am sure he won't mind me sharing a little bit of information with you, but I will also share some information with him. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, this is the area where population health is located.

Thank you. Mr. Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank the Minister for that clarification. In regard to this area here, in my reply to the budget, I talked about the Butthead campaign, the process. I can actually say that it worked really well, from what I've seen. Has the department looked at using this, or are we using the new system or the new program that we have that the Minister talked about today? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we have moved forward with a number of programs. The program that I mentioned earlier today in questions from the Member from the Deh Cho, one that was just released recently. During business planning, I did make a commitment to have the department look at the older program Don't Be a Butthead to see what opportunities exist. It retired a number of years ago. At that time, we heard that many of the students were not connecting with it the same as they did when it initially came out. It might have been a timing thing. It might have been it just grew a little tired. We do not know, so I asked the department to do some investigation into whether there was any opportunity to explore revitalizing it. We are going to get that done, but it has not been done. We will be going out and reaching out to some of our stakeholders to see if there is an interest in revitalizing in anyway.

Thank you. Nothing further from Mr. Thompson. Next I have Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I think this section of the budget is where the Minister indicated there were going to be three people hired to help with implementation of the agricultural strategy. Can the Minister tell us what those individuals are going to do generally? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there are a couple of things happening. The first thing that we are doing is we are looking forward to putting regulations in. We are almost done getting those regulations ready to go for the sale and distribution of low-risk foods, so that is things like vegetables and other things that can be grown, potatoes, this, that, and the other. If those items are going to be sold by local producers, we need to make sure that the food is inspected, the food is safe, and that it is meeting certain criteria. Those would be outlining the regulations.

To operationalize that, we need a few people to make that happen, which includes an epidemiologist in Yellowknife, an environmental health officer in Hay River, and I am forgetting the title, but an environmental protection officer, I think, in Yellowknife, so three positions that will be doing that work. They will be helping our producers make sure that the food is meeting standards so that it can be sold in stores. They are also anticipatory as well, because in 2018-2019 we are looking at moving forward with regulations on any other work that needs to be done on higher-risk foods, which includes meat and other things that may be harvested, so it can be sold in stores as well. A couple of different things are happening; round 1, low-risk vegetables, fruits, if you can figure out how to grow them in the North, and things like that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I think I can teach the Minister a few things about growing carrots, if he is ever interested. Well, we have fruits, too. I have raspberries at the side of the house, but we can have a separate conversation about that. Okay. That all sounds all right. There is, I think, a 5 per cent reduction of locums used in the business plan here, and that is supposed to save $900,000. Can someone just explain to me what this is about and how we can anticipate that somehow these locums, their work is going to be reduced by 5 per cent? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Mr. Chair, I am pretty good at growing carrots and potatoes. I have a hard time with fruit, even raspberries; the wild ones do not work so well, so we will take any advice the Member may have.

The $900,000 is as a result of work that we have already done. We have brought all of the medical professionals under a single authority, and we have been able to get some economies of scale as far as recruitment. We have actually, I think, done better than we have in the past under recruitment. We have more stability in Hay River and Inuvik than we have had in many, many years, and as a result we have seen a decrease in locum use, but we are always going to need locums, Mr. Chair. I mean, there are times when our staff go on holidays or have to go out for training, or sometimes, unfortunately, they do retire or leave and we have to back-fill in a short period. We are still struggling in some areas. There is no question. We are having a hard time finding permanency in places like the Deh Cho, the Sahtu, Fort Smith, but we are hoping to continue as a single medical system. We are hoping to see some benefits there, but we have already recognized savings and do see them in this budget. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly.

Thank, Mr. Chair. How is that going to be tracked and reported on? Is that something that we are going to see in the business plan next year? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this is as a base adjustment to the budget, so you won't see these dollars showing up in future years. The role of the recruitment of physicians is also going to be part of the territorial health authority, so you probably won't see it specifically. We are comfortable right now with the changes we have made and the improvements we have seen that we will be able to control our spending in this area a little bit better than we have in the past, and we do not feel we need this $900,000 at this point. Should things radically change, we will certainly be prepared to have a discussion at this point, but we are trying really hard to be a little more creative here. We have approached U of A about some residency options here in the Northwest Territories as well as some outreach work that the medical students at U of A could do to get into small communities which is consistent with some of the recommendations in the TRC report. We are trying to create exposure and awareness of the North to potential practitioners. We are hoping that will result in more stability, even more stability than we are seeing over the last couple of years. It is a work in progress. I think it will always ebb and flow, but I think we are in a good place now with a single medical system. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly.