Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I too recognize in the gallery my beautiful wife Aleda Edjericon, and also everybody in the gallery that's here, I just want to say welcome. Mahsi.

Thank you, Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. If we missed anyone in the gallery today, welcome to your chamber. I hope you're enjoying the proceedings. It's always nice to see people in the gallery and allowing us to represent the people of the Northwest Territories here.

Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Replies to the Budget Address, Day 3 of 7. Acknowledgements. Oral questions. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank NTPC Minister and their technician staff and contractors for the swift reaction to get into Fort Resolution to restore the power and to keep their homes and community safe. However, my constituents are still wondering why NTPC made the decision to overhaul the generator in Fort Resolution on January 11th, 2025.

Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of NTPC. My question is why did the NTPC staff wait until January 2025 to do their planned generator replacement versus when the preventive maintenance work could have been done probably in the summer or fall time? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister responsible for NTPC.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, it was certainly helpful to have lines of communication open when the event was ongoing, so I do thank the Member for being a part of that.

Mr. Speaker, the events that led to this outage were actually routine operations, so it was not related to any maintenance that as a result of the Taltson being offline. It was to switch over one of the units that was overheating. There was a backup unit there available, there were technicians available, and so they really were not anticipating circumstances to become what they were on that day and, certainly, as it again it was noted, were there and were making efforts to bring things back online as quickly as they could. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My second question is in the event of freezing up homes in my community if it was caused by NTPC's lengthy power outage, who is ultimately responsible to pay for the frozen home repairs if that ever happened? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it is standard practice for utilities everywhere in the country that there's not any provisions whereby they would compensate customers who might find themselves in circumstances if they have some damages so there's no difference here with NTPC. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister responsible for NTPC. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Final supplementary.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My third question is in the future, can the NTPC look at maybe doing this type of work in the summer months when it's more appropriate versus when it's in January and February and March? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, Mr. Speaker, with respect to any major works, they certainly do try to consider timing and availability of backups and obviously certainly at some point extreme weather. Again, with routine maintenance, Mr. Speaker, there's a concern that they've been wanting to maintain reliability so not wanting to wait. At this point, we are expecting the Taltson to be back online I think later this month, subject to confirming that. But with that, that obviously provides a pretty significant source of primary power. So, you know, again, understand the concerns and do want to assure the community that we are expecting they'll be back to their usual source of power with diesel being the backup and this, therefore, should not -- they shouldn't be experiencing any similar problems hopefully for the rest of this year. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister responsible for NTPC. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, within our system, I hear what the Member is saying, however, there are doctors assigned to the primary care teams that are in Yellowknife, so that's the structure that we work around now. You know, if we look back over the years of how health care was provided and basically clinics were -- we went from a private health care model where doctors set up their own private clinics and, you know, took on patients, whereas right now all of the physicians in our system are now contracted to the NTHSSA and they are -- you know, they -- within that department, they're working within the model of the primary health care model. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister's answer of defending status quo process and paperwork because I'm not sure we are doing anything better. I can't -- I'd like to hear what the Minister says we've solved health care problems and assignments. Can the Minister answer that question in the context of why don't we go back to fee for service where doctors could see more patients a day and deliver the same type of results, about serving citizens, and that's exactly what we want. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have not heard from the physicians that want to go back to fee for service, but I will bring that forward to NTHSSA to see if that's something that they're hearing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the last doctor who talked about, if I may say, a soft way complained or highlighted or raised the flag of scheduling and administration, when they retired, they were no longer welcome back. Mr. Speaker, that type of frustration, in other words if you speak out about problems you're going to be benched. Mr. Speaker, what type of environment can we create and foster to get intake directly from the doctors about how we can serve our citizens better in a system that works better and is more efficient? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm not familiar with the -- what the Member is referring to, but what I can say is that just even in this last few months I've had meetings with, you know, with physicians, with the medical -- NWT Medical Association. The PA has met with them, the CEO has met with them. You know, so we are trying to understand what, you know, some of the highlighted issues are with primary care reform and work with the physicians through that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister -- the Minister of Health and Social Services dismissed the health leadership council that provided overall governance to the Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority. In their dismissal, which was very clear, that it was not due to cause, that they performed their duties effectively. So can the Minister explain why we need a public administrator if the outgoing council did such a good job? Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, you know, one of the things with the governing council, I will give it to those Members that sat on those -- that council from those four -- or from the communities, from the regions, they worked very hard representing their communities, bringing forward some of these issues, transitioning them into, you know, how to move this system forward. Many of them have been there since the beginning of the NTHSSA's creation. But the mounting pressure, the mounting financial pressures that they were raising, became clear that the complex situation that, you know, we hear it every day, like, we're hearing it right now - how are we providing access to care? We hear constantly about access issues. You know, we have small communities where we have health centres that are on emergency services. We have equipment within the NTHSSA that is inhibiting people to phone and make appointments. So it's not just from the access to care. But we also have recruitment issues, morale issues, you know, and I think there's many complex things that this board who work and do this work, they all have other careers. They all -- you know, and so they do this in quarterly meetings. They meet with the -- they used to meet with the chair. So there is more focus now to be able to work with the PA who is continuing to work with the chairs from the regional wellness council to do this work. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, certainly, I don't think anyone expects the governance council to run day-to-day operational concerns of the health authority. My question was what does the -- what new powers -- or sorry, what did the council not have that the public administrator does? Thank you.