Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to acknowledge the medical misgendering of this resident's medical file, and I would like to extend my sincere apology. I know my colleague has raised that they were frustrated, they were hurt, the hardship that it put on them having to deal with this for so many years. The details of why and how this didn't get done on a -- you know, when they tried to deal with it in person, I don't have those details. But what I can say is that we will make sure that this doesn't happen to any Northwest Territories' resident again. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that. I do appreciate that she was able to rectify this issue in a very quick way, and I'm glad to hear that she's looking at it going forward.

Mr. Speaker, what current training does NTHSSA provide to both medical and administrative staff on 2SLGBTQIAPA+ identities and expression? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, diversity and inclusion training is available to all health and social services system staff, including specific workshops on the diversity, inclusion in the workplace training, 2SLGBTQQIA+ 101 inclusive workplace awareness training, mitigating unconscious bias training. They also have PDI that they can use for other training. There is other self-learning training if health and social services staff wish to take on, but these are the training that we do have through diversity inclusion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's very well and good; I'm a little bit disappointed it's only voluntary for situations such as this. So can the Minister commit to further education for staff on the presentation and identification of genders specifically in administrative health services? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, yes, Mr. Speaker, I am committed to ensuring that health and social services space are safe, equitable, for all residents accessing the services and that everyone should be able to feel safe when they're coming into any one of our health services throughout the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Oral questions. Member from Monfwi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, how many speech and language pathology services positions currently service preschool and school aged children in the NWT? Thank you.

Member from Monfwi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment -- or is it health? Oh, health?

Yes, please.

Okay, sorry. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have the actual numbers of how many speech-language pathologists that we have. But what I do know is that many of those positions that we do have across the Northwest Territories are vacant. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Okay, well, that's what I was going to say is how many of those SLP positions are currently vacant and how many are filled? That was the next question, but if she can still answer.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can commit to getting that information back to the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one school in Tlicho region says 80 percent of its students need speech and language pathology services. So with that in mind, I want to ask the Minister how many children in Tlicho region are on the waitlist for speech-language pathology as compared to the whole of the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am unaware of how many children are on the waitlist in the Tlicho region. But what I can do is I can commit to getting those numbers. I also would like to highlight that, you know, the waitlist, yes -- however there is a waitlist, our speech and language pathologists that we do have are seeing -- and what they're doing is they're triaging so they're seeing youth under 5 and then youth between 16 -- 6 and 17 who have severe needs, so safety issues -- so speech-language is not just for speech but it's also for swallowing, so if there -- we're utilizing the staff that we do have for those severe issues so that -- and right now, so that means a lot of the stuff that's needed by them are the consultation piece so that they -- what speech-language and department does is they work with the schools, they do the consult and then they make a plan for that child, and that's what that -- you know, and that's the issue that we're having with the low numbers of speech-language pathologists in our system. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Monfwi.

I want to ask the Minister what is the current wait time in the NWT for speech-language services and, specifically, for children in school and why they are still -- why they are vacant, why there are so many vacant positions in the NWT? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, I can commit to getting the wait time for the children back to the Member and to all the Members. I mean, we have -- we do track a lot of these. And the -- so what -- but within this, what I would like to say is that we have these positions. We are unable to -- you know, we advertise these positions. If people don't apply on them -- they're unionized positions. We aren't able to contract out the service. That is -- you know, so there's no means to fill these positions other than trying to get -- if we can get terms or, you know -- but we can't even -- we're not even able to. What we're advertising is the positions. I know that in the school authority, some of the school authorities, they've been able to use third party funding in some of the school authorities to do contracts with speech-language pathologists. But they're not bound by the rules that we have to follow with our unionized employees. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to do justice to the process that is undertaken. There is a risk-based analysis that's done. It's done -- it comes up through -- from frontline department staff through to each individual department. There is a peer review process that then goes on where the ranking is reviewed, it goes to an ADM committee where it's again reviewed, and only at that point projects that make it through that process with sufficiently high ranking go on to the deputy ministers and then ultimately on to the financial management board to determine which project might proceed in any particular year or not. There is a fairly significant -- I don't have the matrix in front of me but one of the top considerations, of course, is health and safety of the population and then other items of ranking down below.

I can say, Mr. Speaker, that none of the projects that come forward are anything less than the top ranking of ensuring health and safety for the people and the residents of the Northwest Territories. There's always a lot more that are on that list than what we often have the ability to do. But, again, I'm more than happy to ensure that that information perhaps is -- if it would be of assistance, we can table it here so that it's more easily and readily available for members of the public who may want to understand that risk process. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do appreciate that commitment from the Minister.

So Mr. Speaker, can the Minister describe the process that Cabinet goes through to assess the implications of the Assembly's priorities have for our capital budgeting and how we might need to shift resources to achieve them? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the priorities of the Assembly are priorities of the Ministers that stand here just as much as of MLAs. When matters come through our individual departments, that is I know certainly reflected in our mandate letter. I can speak for myself, Mr. Speaker, that it's reflected in the mandate letter that I have for my departments, and mandate letters very much govern what comes forth in departments as they're trying to ensure that they achieve what's in these mandate letters which are themselves a product that comes from other priorities and then, of course, decision items go whether to the Cabinet packages or FMB packages when it's approvals of financial items and thereto within the financial management board's review processes that those templates are available online for review for any member of the public. And it does include in there the kinds of different considerations, including alignment with the mandate and an analysis of political factors including, again, alignment with the mandate. Thank you.