Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I said a week or two ago, I had some responses around the Regional Wellness Councils. They do have the ability to set their agendas, and if they wanted to have some meetings with other groups, they would certainly be able to do that. It is my understanding right now that that has not been done. None of the Regional Wellness Councils have established or set up meetings with other bodies to share information or to talk. It's not a horrible idea. I will certainly raise it with the territorial authority and the board chair as a potential opportunity. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thanks to the Minister for that response. Awareness of services is a really essential and concerning discussion when we go back to our communities. My next question, Mr. Speaker: can the Minister confirm if there is a human resource career and training strategy in six of the regional centres?

I am not 100 percent sure what the Member is asking. I do know that the territorial authority does have some human resource functions to help them do some strategic planning to ensure that they are supporting their staff. They work closely with the human resource department of Finance to do recruitment and retention, to do staffing. I am not sure exactly what the Member is asking. Within the strategic plan, there is talk about the recruitment or retention of hard-to-recruit allied health professionals, nurses, social workers, and others, but as far as an individual plan by community or region, I am not 100 percent sure if that is what the Member is asking.

I will ask the question again. There is a regional training plan here, or a sessional plan, for each of the six RWCs that are looking at employment opportunities, training opportunities on their respective area for that particular Regional Wellness Council.

The Regional Wellness Council across the Northwest Territories are there to provide us insight, wisdom, and make recommendations on ways to improve the delivery of programs and services in their regions and the communities.

Recruiting and retaining professionals is certainly an issue that affects everybody in the Health and Social Services system. I have reached out to Indigenous governments and, for the Regional Wellness Councils that I have met with, we have talked about trying to find ways to encourage local people to pursue health and social services careers.

The Regional Wellness Council members themselves, we do provide training to them on their roles and responsibilities on the Regional Wellness Council. We don't work to help them get employed, and I am not sure if that is what the Member is saying. I am not 100 percent sure I understand exactly what the Member is asking me, but as far as getting advice and direction on how to encourage young people to pursue those careers, we are certainty open to them for advice and their wisdom.

Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Then I will work with the Minister on training plan opportunities within the department for the Sahtu area, for example. My last question here: can the Minister confirm if there is a plan in place for traditional medicine awareness campaigns in the Sahtu, for example, or in any of the other regions, how traditional medicine and being researched and engaged into some of the systems that they would apply for? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This is an area that traditionally over the years hasn't been followed up on or addressed. I made a commitment within this government to work with Indigenous leaders and interested stakeholders to bring traditional healing and wellness into our health and social services system. We work closely with the Indigenous governments here. We put together a working group who actually helped us develop some terms of reference for the creation and establishment of a traditional wellness or a traditional healing advisory group, and we have put that working group in place.

Their role is to provide us advice and recommendations on how to incorporate more traditional healing wellness medicines into our system of health and social services here. They are in early days. We haven't received information or a report back from them, but we look forward to what they are going to be able to produce, and the advice and guidance they can provide us around traditional healing, wellness, medicines, those types of things. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.