Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Union of Northern Workers represents nurses and the civil service in the NWT. In the summer, they ratified an agreement for 1.5 percent increase for two years this fiscal year, next fiscal year.
If we are going to offer more money to people to work, then we need to make the situation equitable. And at this point, we don't have a way to do that. Health is understaffed. But not only health. Education is very understaffed. There is a lot of gaps in teacher assignments in the Northwest Territories. Corrections officers are understaffed.
So the problem that we have is how to single out one occupation and incentivize them without taking into consideration that there may be other occupations where there's a shortage of staff, a competitive environment for staff.
And so at this point, there's no easy way around that. I will just say that in many jurisdictions, nurses have their own union to deal with their own issues, workplace issues, compensation, and so on. But that, so far, has not been a direction that's gone in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.