Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my colleague, my honourable friend the Member from Hay River North, talked about the GNWT. I have less of an issue with the policies that our public service has to follow; I'm more with the government. So I want to ask the Premier today if he will direct his Cabinet to do a comprehensive reform of procurement on all of the government approach? Will the Premier commit to doing that? Thank you.

Masi. The Honourable Premier.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I've been in government a long time. I've probably been through about six reviews of the Business Incentive Policy, and every time we've brought it forward, there have been no changes because everybody sees that the Business Incentive Policy is the best government policy ever written. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My next question, again, is for the best Premier ever: will he commit to amending the Minister of Infrastructure's mandate letter to include a review of the procurement policies in the GNWT?

I've had many meetings with the NWT Chamber of Commerce and almost in every instance, when we raise concerns about procurement, it's because of a difference in understanding. Certainly, if the Members can provide me with a list of the problems, as they see them, then we can determine whether there is actually a need for a review of it. And, as I said, the last time I met with the Chamber of Commerce, which was about four months ago, we asked them to tell us what they see as the problem or what concerns they have, and then we can act on it. Certainly, if we have a whole host of problems where it's warranted to do a review, we will certainly look as doing so.

This government has just done a lengthy public engagement process on manufacturing, and in some of those sessions, concerns were raised. I find it hard to believe that there are no concerns that are coming out of these meetings. Maybe the Premier is not talking to the right people, or maybe the Premier needs to listen to this side of the House. So will the Premier commit to look at the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment that recommended procurement reform or an evaluation of procurement policies? Will he look at that recommendation, accept it, and make it part of this government?

I'd be pleased to do so if somebody would tell me what the problem was. Is it a service problem? It's been suggested that our employees are not providing the necessary service to businesses. If that's the problem, then we can look at educating our employees further, which we seem to be doing a lot of. If it's the policy problem, well, tell us what the problems are, then we can determine. I mean, working for the government, I like doing reviews, but I want to have a reason for doing it.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.

Mr. Speaker, I don't know how many more Member's statements that I need to make or that my honourable friends need to make before the Premier will listen to what we're saying and address those issues. So to the issue of progress payments, will the Premier direct his Minister to fix that problem, to ensure progress payments don't require bonds, and that they can move forward to support small businesses? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'd be prepared to look at that, but, obviously, we've gotten to a lot of issues with the fact that we need to protect the government's investments, and if we make progress payments without the necessary securities, then it might put us in a difficult situation. Certainly, now that the Member has raised it, even though I do not know if it is a committee concern, I am prepared to look at that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are committed to trying to fill all of our physician positions with local practitioners rather than locum practitioners. We run about a 23.6 per cent vacancy, and we continue to recruit pretty much all the time. That is both for the GPs and for the specialists.

We do recognize that it is a challenge. We are trying to do a few things differently that will hopefully help us improve some of our numbers. One of the things we have done is we have recently talked to the University of Alberta about running a medical residency program here in the Northwest Territories. We are somewhat early days in discussion on that, but we think there is a real opportunity to get some of the students up here to do some of the residency placements. Hopefully, they will fall in love with the place as much as you and I.

That is good news about the residents. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister if the Minister can tell us if the communities of Hay River, Forts Smith and Simpson, Behchoko, Norman Wells, and Inuvik have local doctors? What is the percentage of local doctors, the vacancy rate, in those communities?

Mr. Speaker, we have most of the positions filled in Yellowknife. We do still need some locums to cover time off, sick time, annual time, those types of things, and people do come and go, so there is turnover in Yellowknife, as well. Beaufort Delta and Inuvik, right now we are pretty fully staffed. I believe there are five physicians out of five up there on a permanent basis, but, you know, any one of them could leave at any time, so we must continue to recruit, even when positions are filled, just to keep the awareness up.

When it comes to Norman Wells, Forts Smith and Simpson, we have reoccurring locums, so individuals who come back on a regular basis, but do not permanently reside. When they are not there, we do have to rely on other short-term locums. We continue to recruit in those areas, as well. Hopefully, when we open the Norman Wells Health Centre, that might be a bit of a draw for somebody who might want to come and be part of that new facility. We will continue to recruit at the same time.

In Hay River we have, I think it is, three permanent physicians now, but some of the them, I think, are already at a percentage of a full FTE, so we still have some locums there, as well. We will continue to do everything that we can to promote this beautiful territory, the great jobs that are here, and an opportunity to come and work with our residents from across the territory.

I would like to ask the Minister if there are any doctors living in Yellowknife who do most of their practicing in one of the other communities I mentioned in my previous question?

Yes, Mr. Speaker, we moved to a single medical system here in the Northwest Territories, even though we have individuals located in different communities. We do have physicians who will travel to other communities. Some of our communities, as the Member is aware, do not have permanent physicians, some of our smaller, more rural communities, so doctors will travel to those communities, but not just doctors. We have community health nurses and advanced practice specialists who have additional training. They can do some things like suturing and some level of diagnosis based on formulary and other work. We have other professionals come out, as well. Yes, doctors do travel to communities throughout the Northwest Territories.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister if there is an actual plan to be rolled out. The plan I guess I am referring to is -- I do not know what it is called, but I am kind of calling it a territorial doctors pool. Is there an actual plan? I know that, when we try to hire doctors, some doctors do not want to live in the small communities because of services for their children, and services for children are just not in in the small communities.

Yellowknife can provide almost all the services, so, as opposed to using locums, is there an actual plan to build a territorial doctors pool here in Yellowknife that will actually work maybe half-time in Hay River, as an example, or half-time in another community? Thank you.

That is actually one exact model that has been discussed previously, and we have explored it. We do have some of our physicians who can go out and provide time in other locations. There has been talk about expanding the pool in Yellowknife so that we can do that coverage rather than rely on locums. We still have trouble recruiting physicians, so we continue to try to figure out how to move that, roll that forward. In the meantime, we continue to provide that distance care.

One of the things that many of the doctors have approached us on, as well as practitioners throughout the system, and we have looked at other systems, are some changes to our primary healthcare model to change it more to a team-based approach where there are groups of physicians, nurses, social workers, counsellors, who are working together in teams or pockets who can provide coverage and care to different groups throughout the Northwest Territories. It is a model similar to the one that was put in place in one of the Indigenous health authorities in Alaska. So we are looking at that right now to see how that might be something that we could roll out. Since we have moved forward with health transformation, now is the logical time for us to look at this more comprehensively, build upon primary healthcare to provide overall, collaborative, integrated, team-based care to residents of the Northwest Territories. That pool would fall in there, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are not on the procurement zombie. They are for the Minister of Lands. Earlier today, I spoke about the recent acquisition of the mineral rights for the abandoned Ptarmigan Mine and the problems this may cause for remediation of this site and perhaps other contaminated sites. Can the Minister of Lands tell us the current status of remediation at the Ptarmigan Mine? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.