Alfred Moses

Thank you. I understand that the Minister mentions that he doesn’t know if the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority had an action plan in place, but as the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services and his department, I believe that he should have an action plan in place should any other small community in the Northwest Territories go through a nursing shortage or lose staff for a period of time, especially during a critical time of year, which is around Christmastime.

My next question for the Minister – hopefully he has these stats on hand. Was there any emergency...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In continuing with my theme with the Beaufort-Delta Regional Leadership Council, upon returning back to Yellowknife I had some information in my mailbox regarding nursing services in a couple of the smaller communities in the Beaufort-Delta region. On two separate occasions over the Christmas holidays, there were two communities that only had essential services of nurses, and my questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services.

My first question is: Knowing that you’re going to be low on nursing or have staff shortages for that time in those communities, was...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just following up, as a responsibility to the Department of Health and Social Services working out of the department, I feel that it’s their responsibility to help create these kinds of action plans and move nurses around, should a community need a nurse or need some type of services. Would the Minister commit to looking at that as an action plan for the future so we don’t have to bring these questions up in the House again? Thank you.

I have a concern, because it’s during a high time where there are a lot of incident rates, such as people going through a hard time during Christmas, depression and those types of areas where there’s a possibility of something happening.

The Minister has also said that authorities don’t share their staff, but he’s always preached about this Yellowknife doctors pool going out to the communities. That’s where I think that when the department finds out that there’s going to be a staff shortage in the community, that they make a plan and create a plan so that people in these small communities have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had the opportunity last month to attend the Beaufort-Delta Regional Council meetings in Inuvik, where we bring all of our mayors, our chiefs and councils into Inuvik, where they have an opportunity to sit down with Cabinet, Cabinet Ministers and all of their staff and ask some pretty tough questions and also look at creating some type of resolution and give the Ministers an opportunity to look and see what’s happening in our small communities and our region with our people in that area.

I was very happy that this was my second time sitting down with the Beaufort-Delta...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today my questions are for the Minister of ITI and are in regard to my Member’s statement that I made earlier.

I’ve written three letters of support for three different contracts that were given out in the Inuvik region, and all three of them were awarded to southern contractors or even a contractor that has a northern address but lives in the south.

I’d like to ask the Minister of ITI if he would commit to doing a comprehensive review of the Business Incentive Policy that we currently have and base it on the fact of contracts that were awarded to southern companies in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that the Minister recognizes that we have two big projects coming up in Inuvik, the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Optic Link and the Inuvik-Tuk highway. I really don’t want to see our local and northern businesses losing out on these contracts. That’s why I need this review sooner than later, because we want to make sure that they get those contracts.

Would the Minister also look – in my previous question about southern contractors – would he create a policy of possibly making these southern contractors do business in the North and have a property here for maybe...

I’m glad that the Minister had mentioned that it is up to the various departments, because I have written letters to three different departments, and it feels that my letters of support do fall on deaf ears. The appropriate Ministers need to be held accountable and also work with the members in the small communities that need this work, especially in Inuvik where our local businesses are losing contracts, and my letters of support, I feel, aren’t being looked at legitimately.

I’d like to ask the Minister if he would create, possibly reviewing this BIP policy, a policy for affirmative action...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to make some more references to yesterday’s budget address. It’s very great to see that we have big projects that are committed to from the 17th Legislative Assembly, and that’s the Inuvik-Tuk highway as well as the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Optic Link and working forward into those two big projects. It’s something that I’ve strongly supported and continue to support throughout this government and to see this process through.

However, one thing that I want to take caution with is that when these projects, should they get approved and go through the process, that this...

Mr. Speaker, I do believe that Members on this side of the House would welcome that review of the Business Incentive Policy, not only Members of this House but the northern business sector. Sit down with them and listen to what their concerns are, because they’re the ones losing out on the contracts.

I would also like to ask the Minister if he would take the review of all the Business Incentive Policy, the list of all northern businesses that are listed under that policy, and do a review of how many of those businesses actually have property and actually live in the Northwest Territories, and...