Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. When small communities do have outbreaks of disease, how do we reallocate our staffing to adequately address those needs, and what are the impacts in the system for staffing? I realize that's really kind of a big question, but I guess I -- maybe the Minister could follow up with any standard operating procedures. I'm just curious. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I know that -- and I can speak to the region that I previously am from -- shortage of staffing and movement of nurses, movement of staff to different regions, you know, when we have -- whether we have an outbreak or, you know, I mean, or when there's -- there is, you know, different things going on in the community, we know some of our communities that have higher numbers of staff and when they're at a capacity when we can't get in nurses, we will move nurses around from one health centre to another and, you know. And more recently, you know, we find we have to look at casual nurses, contract nurses, which are not necessarily agency nurses that go out to the health centres but term nurses, locum CHNs that we have in our rosters that will go out and do short-term contracts in the health centres to help and to support when there's low numbers of nurses in those communities. So that's how we do it. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So with the revitalization of public health that the Member for Yellowknife North was asking about earlier, will there be a contemplation of adequate staffing levels throughout the system so that surge maybe doesn't have such a strong impact on various regional centres when required? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, when we have surge capacity, these are unpredictable time -- like, when they happen. So normally we would just use the staff on hand, overtime, and other contract nurses if we can from the department. Like, we would just move people around. And so that's within this public health reform that -- you know, the nurses that are working in public health, the one thing that we only have is we only have nurses that work in public health here in Yellowknife and I believe in Fort Smith, in Hay River, and in Inuvik, and the duties of public health are -- we rely on CHNs, community health nurses, in those other communities that are health centres to do those duties on top of all of their other duties. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Great Slave.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just more of a comment, really, and then I'll cede my time. But I'm hoping, and I look forward to primary care reform possibly increasing this line item so that prevention is more of the equation. I hope the Minister shares this sentiment. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do apologize if I'm repeating any questions here. I was trying to follow along with all the other Members.

But the community clinics and health centres, I notice there's a pretty significant increase there. Can the Minister just give a quick summary of what's happening there.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll turn it over to the ADM for that detail.

Thank you. I'll go to the ADM.

I really appreciate that. And similarly, the community, culture and innovation is cut almost perfectly in half. Can they just give a quick description of what's behind that.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, that's due to the renegotiation of the Northern Wellness Agreement. So once we have that agreement finalized, that the money will go back there. So it's just because we're in -- by the time the budget is done, the agreement ended and so we're in negotiations for the future agreement, multi-year agreement. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My apologies, I'm not quite sure I understand what the Minister is telling us there. So this item is not actually being reduced, it's just showing as reduced in the budget? Or can you better explain what's meant by the answer.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, so the way that it shows in the budget is reduction because the Northern Wellness Agreement hadn't been signed, hadn't been done, finalized by the time the process to have the budget and so it -- as it looks like it's reduced, there is -- there is no changes in positions or anything like that because of the agreement came after, the new agreement.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.