Thank you, Madam Chair. One of the concerns I have with this one is: I recognize it is best practice to increase resident healthcare workers and that we should be training as many nurses and getting as many nurses as possible. Right now, the case is that we cannot find those nurses and that locums are really filling the gaps. One of the beautiful things about locums is they are brought up here and they can immediately jump into a position, or at least that is the goal.

My concern with this is that what we may see is that we want more resident people, so we are going to start getting rid of the nurses we are currently bringing up from down south. I am looking for a commitment that we are not going just simply start using fewer locums without actually having the nurses in place. I think this is a long-term goal to actually reach. I know the health authority has posted a deficit. They just came packed with another supplementary, and one of ways that you could maybe cut costs is: let's stop bringing up so many locums. However, I am afraid if we do that the situation is going to get worse, so I am looking for some sort of commitment that we don't stop bringing up nurses from down south until we have those positions filled.