Minister of Education, Culture and Employment or ITI.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes. I agree. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Excellent, I am very glad the Minister agrees. So with that, considering the success that we have seen the Yukon and Nunavut governments have had recently in attracting post-secondary investment, what is the Minister doing to work with Aurora College to leverage third party investment in our territory? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in addition to making sure that third party investments was included in the mandate agreement with the Aurora College board of governors, I've also ensured that if I know of any programs or funding sources that I am sharing that information with Aurora College, with their board of governors. I know that because of that they have pursued specific funding that is relevant for their housing desires. I've also confirmed with them that should they want to travel to Ottawa together in order to meet with federal counterparts on some of these opportunities or with other third party funders that I am more than happy to pair these meetings up with other travel that I do in my role as Minister. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I am happy to hear that the Minister is collaborating with the college.

Mr. Speaker, I note that the college recently received good news about their CAQC process, so it looks like pieces are starting to line up on the transition. Can the Minister confirm that the Polytechnic University Act will move ahead in this Assembly in order to support that transition? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we're certainly working on the required legislation for the Aurora College Polytechnic. That work has not stopped. That includes pieces like establishing a framework for that, evaluating what clauses from the existing Aurora College Act would be imported into new legislation, and also looking at the legislation or university or polytechnic legislation from other jurisdictions like the Yukon, speaking with counterparts over there as well, to find out information like what has served them well, what they would have liked to have seen different or what they feel would be other opportunities, so making sure that we're also pulling from lessons learned from other jurisdictions as we complete this work. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to return to a subject similar to the one I just asked earlier to the health Minister but also in this Assembly, which is rheumatoid arthritis, Mr. Speaker.

Over 300 cases in the NWT are active in the sense of people need regular and ongoing treatment, some twice a year, sometimes up to four times a year, and have to fly to Edmonton for treatment. So the point being here is, Mr. Speaker, is there a better way. Rheumatoid arthritis requires a $300,000 paycheck. Has there been any analysis on understanding for value for service? So in other words, has the Minister, and her department obviously, done any work on analyzing the cost effectiveness of bringing a rheumatoid doctor to the Northwest Territories to provide clinic treatments? Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what the Member is saying is what we do want. We want to be able to recruit and have specialists to be able to come to the Northwest Territories to do this. We do know that it's hard on our residents to have to travel all the time. It's -- you know, there's costs involved with that. However, right now I know that they do have -- they are working collaboratively with the Alberta Health Services to try and recruit within their -- because it's within their jurisdiction, to be able to recruit many of these specialists, you know, coming to the Northwest Territories. You know, if we put out the positions, and we have in the past, the agreements that we've had with other specialists, there's nobody that wants to move here right now in these positions. And so even with recruitment, trying to do that. So we're closely working with Alberta Health Services. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Now, Mr. Speaker, there are a whole suite of services when it comes to specialists. I am just going to call them specialists. So what type of analysis specifically are we doing? So in other words, have they done business case analysis studying about bringing these types of specialists to the Northwest Territories to run clinics here? And if that's the case, can the Minister share that with people like me? Furthermore, if it isn't the case, would she just say that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The work that's being done, the analysis that's being done on the out-of-territory physician services, is in the -- the analysis is being completed within the health sustainability unit team. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mr. Speaker, that's a lot of information that doesn't say a whole lot. So, Mr. Speaker, can the Minister be very specific and share what analysis that have actually been done and targeted to particular specialists so we can see what type of business case models the department is considering; would she share that information? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what I can do is I will go back to the NTHSSA and have a conversation with them of what they have done in the past; however, everything that they have done in the past and in these analyses, they are working closely with the health sustainability unit as that is one -- I believe that there's six or seven targeted areas, and that is one of them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Mackenzie Delta.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have one question related to my Member's statement. You know, our people were not brought up on specific policies and procedures but brought up on what's best suited for their specific needs. Today, every aspect of our lives revolves around policies and procedures. You know, I get calls regularly saying, you know, they have medical needs but due to policies and procedures, I have to tell them they are not entitled to specific medical needs.

My question to the Minister is will the Minister and her department look at implementing a community navigator position into our smaller communities so that our residents' specific medical needs -- and get them the services that they require in the immediate future? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Mackenzie Delta. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what we do have for the Inuvik region, which services all of the communities, is we do have an Indigenous patient health navigator. However, within our health services and all our health centres, anyone needing information around the services that they can -- they do provide and how to access those services should be readily available by any health centre. So if there's information that the Member is wanting exactly, you know, feel free to reach out to my office so we can have -- you know, we can send out to the health centres specifically some information for them to provide to the public. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My second set of questions is also to the Minister of Health and Social Services, and I'd like to dig into some of the specific unfinished deliverables laid out in the public administrator work plan.

So my understanding was that one of the top, top priorities for the PA was to ensure the health authority stops deficit budgeting, essentially balances budget. And there was initial indication that we would see that in last year's mains and then further expectation it would be in these current mains. So for the Minister, what would lead us to believe we should expect a balanced budget by next year's mains? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the public administrator has been working hard with the CEO and the NTHSSA executive to bring forward, over the last couple of years, a lot of the areas they were targeting in forced growth and enhancements that they previously have done. So if people don't -- like, most people don't understand that the authority was continuing to just put in areas where there was high pressure, high needs, and that's what was driving up the deficit; however, within this government we, you know, as Cabinet and as myself as Minister, once we got the public administrator in, that piece was directed on ensuring that any forced growth submissions and all those things were targeting areas that were drivers of the deficit. So this past year, the budget that was -- was less than the previous year, and so I think before the end of this government, this is where we are expecting -- and, you know, throughout the situation, we didn't want it to impact patients' care. And so by just cutting the budget was not effective. It was working within, finding from within, tightening up areas where, you know, spending might -- you know, where we could -- if it didn't impact patient care. And so those things have been completed over the years, and I am looking -- you know, I -- you know, within the next little while, we'll be getting the NTHSSA's budget for the 2026-2027 year, and I am pretty sure that, you know, and from the information that I've been getting on quarterly updates, that we will have a more -- closer to the budget yearend. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.