Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I was saying, money is a huge factor in where people decide to work. I will just give one example. There was a doctor that concluded her residency here in Yellowknife. She was offered a job. She really liked it. She said she would have liked to stay. However, she had applied in Texas as well, and they offered to pay her student loan of $160,000 if she stayed there for four years. So obviously she did not stay here. She is down in Texas. Those are the types of things we have to deal with. Mr. Speaker, maybe it is time we found a way to deal with these things. Maybe it is time the nurses were not in the overall public service contract, whatever it is called. Thank you.

--Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I arise today to speak about the growing crisis caused by the shortage of nurses and doctors. My colleague from Hay River has mentioned or asked questions and made statements a couple of times since we have been here this week. I had wanted to participate in that as well, but I want to make sure I had my other questions asked and statements made first. Mr. Speaker, because of the contracts, the union's pay equity, it is very difficult to change salaries, wages, that type of thing. We can only do that every time a contract expires. Now with pay equity, you raise one of the nurses, you have got to raise so many other different fields as well.

The problem we are having, Mr. Speaker, is to fly doctors and nurses in and out on a part-time basis because of the shortage. We are having inexperienced nurses in the communities, and because of their inexperience and their fears of something happening to the people, I am hearing they are medevacing too many people out. It is causing this type of cost to go out of sight, so something has to be done. We know that the government put $3 million or something into some type of a plan. I cannot remember the length over which this money is supposed to be utilized, but I think we have to go beyond that. There has to be something put into place so that when nurses and doctors are being offered huge incentives down south to go south, we can combat that somehow. Whether we like it or not, money plays a huge, huge factor in where people are going to go to work. It is not only the lifestyle and the rest of that. Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

Mr. Speaker, I do not see any reasoning in Mr. Dent's words. Just because a person feels he has a point of order, it does not mean he has a point of order. He actually has to have one. I have not heard any actual reasoning why it is a point of order, but I have agreed I will take it out. I will say bump on the log then, okay. My whole point was not a racial slur. It could have been anything that could not listen. A wooden Indian cannot listen because it is a piece of wood. That is all I said. If you read my words, that is what it means, so I will say a bump on the log.

Mr. Speaker, it loses some of the meaning. I do not mind taking out those three words. If he wants to tell me what else he wants to have sit there like I do not mind. I will take out the proverbial wooden Indian. He can put whatever else he wants to sit there like. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I do not believe there is a point of order there. Mr. Speaker, I have no problem with removing that. What would the Premier wish to replace those words with? The sentence is still there. There has to be something, we cannot just leave it blank.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. I move we report progress.

Thank you, Madam Chairperson. The Standing Committee on Government Operations reviewed Bill 24, An Act to Amend the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act at its meeting on July 29, 1999. The committee would like to thank the Honourable Charles Dent for presenting the bill and responding to the committee's questions.

Bill 24 would amend the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act to allow the Management and Services Board to appoint a special information and privacy commissioner where the commissioner has determined that he or she should not act in a particular matter. The Commissioner now has a conflict with respect to a review, and the act does not currently allow another individual to act on a single review in the Commissioner's place. The bill provides that the special commissioner will hold office until the conclusion of the matter for which he or she was appointed.

Madam Chairperson, the standing committee supports this amendment. Committee Members may have questions or comments on the bill as we proceed. This concludes the standing committee's comments on Bill 24, An Act to Amend the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to thank the Premier for his forthright answers and reiterate that if there is any further assistance that the committee Members can provide then we would be happy to oblige, and I would like to thank the Premier for indicating that they will be consulting with the stakeholders to see if there is concurrence with our recommendations. That is the most we could ask for that the government see what the reaction is, because I do not think we would want to put something into place that nobody else agrees to it either. So, with that I would once again like to thank the Premier and his Cabinet for agreeing to do this.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As has been indicated, the smaller communities do need some form of reassurance that things are going to happen and in order for that reassurance we feel very strongly that things have to be in legislation before this Assembly dissolves and we all know that legislation takes time to be drafted and there are only certain people that can do drafting, but this government has used drafters from the south in the past and we have people in the past who used to work here that live in other jurisdictions and I know that this government still uses them. I would like to see if the Premier would be willing to use other drafters than our own staff if we have to in order to insure that this legislation is completed in time to be passed by this Assembly. Thank you.