Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, while Education, Culture and Employment does not mandate specific programs of any type in NWT schools. Because of our decentralized system, we certainly do work to coordinate with our education bodies as we can. So education bodies are responsible to confirm and implement programs that support the delivery of curriculum within the schools, and sometimes this might include referrals to the diagnostic assessments that do happen through the school funding framework, Mr. Speaker. There's also the flexibility to accommodate local decision-making and sometimes that includes, you know, bringing in different specialty items to work with teachers, like -- sorry, different specialty professional development opportunities to work with teachers so that they can really focus on the needs that they have in their classroom. But through the school funding framework, our education bodies take on the role of supporting their teachers with extra supports in classrooms. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I noted in my statement that our last literacy strategy framework ended in 2018. Mr. Speaker, when is a renewed literacy strategy going to be introduced? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, I heard the Member's comment in his Member's statement. And currently, there is no intent to update the literacy strategy in the Northwest Territories that expired in 2018. We do have, however, have our 2030 early learning and childcare strategy as well as our early learning framework which emphasizes literacy within both of those documents. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I noted in my statement that most other jurisdictions in Canada are implementing programs to ensure early literacy screening is happening in schools. Can the Minister commit to following suit in the NWT and get early screening for literacy done in NWT schools? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, within our shift to an NWT-adapted BC curriculum, the broader curriculum does have an assessment framework, an early literacy assessment tool, that teachers can use that's built into it. So assessments will be happening and will be -- the tools will be afforded to teachers to do some of those assessments in classrooms to be able to catch some of these challenges and concerns earlier on. It's important to note this is not a diagnostic assessment, and it's also important to note that there are the well child clinics that parents do have available to them before their child starts school.

In direct response to the Member's question, absolutely, within my ability and our decentralized education system, I would absolutely be happy to look at other models and commit to reviewing the screening and assessment tools that other jurisdictions are using and find out how we can potentially look at how those might work within our jurisdiction and our model. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.

All right, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that. I want to return to the topic of walk-in clinics and, of course, this is not an extensive list of the people that work there, but there are people who take the samples and there are people who review the samples, and that's pretty much it. But, Mr. Speaker, when people arrive at 7:30 in the morning, there's long lines, you can't make phone calls because no one answers the phone, there's no chairs so people with mobility issues are standing there and struggling, and there's way more people there than the slots available for doing that. What can the Minister do to address that type of problem with this lab clinic situation? Thank you.

Thank you, Member for Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, as this is brought up in the House, I will bring this back to NTHSSA and follow up as to how things are going in the lab and the walk-in clinic there, and if there's improvements that -- what recommendations that -- you know, what do they -- you know, to be able to carry out some of these things. However, at this time, there's not many things that I can say on the floor of this House, that I'd have to go back to NTHSSA as that falls under their authority. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the willingness of the Minister. If she wants some simple suggestions, chairs, the little tags at the DMV --

(audio).

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. And the problem is people show up there wanting to get their samples processed and there aren't enough staff to actually, as I said earlier, take the samples and analyze the samples. What happens to the samples that can't be analyzed locally? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the Member, you know, and I will take him up on if he has any other recommendations, feel free to stop at my office and give me that list of recommendations. I'll bring them over to NTHSSA and see what they can do about that.

As for the lab recs that are -- any lab tests that cannot be done within the house, like there is a multiple types of tests that we do in-house at Stanton, and there are some that we -- they just don't have the capacity to continue to do all of those samples. They send them to Alberta through the contract that we have through the lab there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not sure I have to walk down to the office; I've already given her the suggestions and she's welcome by the way.

That said, Mr. Speaker, the Minister did go into the other area of where the samples are going. What type of analysis is being taken as to how much are going where, what does it cost, what does it change the process. Because I'm aware that section has requested more staffing. In other words, they put in submissions to increase the staff but someone in the chain of hierarchy keeps denying them the needed staff. And I'm curious as to what the reasoning is behind that. So the analysis and the reasons here. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. I think that's a dual question there, a double question. Now I wasn't tightening at the Member. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will bring this back. And I know that we do have -- we do track the stats, and we do know what we send out. We do actually know what it costs us to send this out. So what I can do is I can get that information, and I can share it with the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today the health Minister delivered a statement about care in small communities that included two recommendations that have been adopted by this working group that includes bringing paramedics into the model of care for small communities. The Northwest Territories is one of, I believe, only two jurisdictions in Canada where paramedics are unregulated. We don't have legislation covering paramedics. So how does she intend to do this without legislation to do so? Thank you.

Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have a lot of health professionals that have worked in our healthcare system, and we are slowly regulating those health professionals. We are looking, as for instance, LPNs most currently were regulated under the nursing -- I think it's the CANN legislation that we passed last year. There is the Health Professions Act that we are, you know, working on to bring to the floor, and there are a number of different aspects under that that we are going to be bringing forward regulations under. We are currently trying to bring forward all of the staff that are currently regulated throughout Canada and, you know, there's jurisdictional scan. There's some areas that don't regulate certain things, some regulate things, so we're just trying to bring all of those forward. And, you know, I don't know where or what at this point where paramedics are, but we have had -- like, have had unregulated professions working in our system under policy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.