Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have been talking about a territory-wide midwife program for a long time now. Originally we had programs in Fort Smith and Yellowknife, but the Yellowknife program was dropped with a plan to beef up the program in the Minister’s home community of Fort Smith.

The plan was to expand the Fort Smith program to Hay River, the Beau-Del, Behchoko and Yellowknife. A start was made and we have since seen progress in Hay River and Fort Smith. However, the Minister reports that the health authorities in the Beau-Del decided that instead of a midwifery program they would maintain...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just had one other set of questions here. I’m wondering when the Minister will be purchasing the $20 million worth of diesel fuel for this purpose.

I agree with the Minister there. Would the Minister agree that comprehensive planning can help mitigate what the costs will be without planning?

Just for perspective here, would the Minister agree we’d be talking probably in the tens of millions of dollars for that exercise?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to follow up a little bit on Ms. Bisaro’s comments. This is primarily motivated by low water which is causing the need for diesel power generation in lieu of not having any other green energy generation capability at this moment in time. I guess I’ll start by saying this is shameful to me, given that the same thing happened last year. I spoke very clearly on this, both in the media and in the House and to the Minister, and yet, exactly the same thing happened again this year.

I am happy that committee is now committed to beginning work on this, albeit belatedly...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. So, when will consultations start here? When will we see midwifery here and what the heck is the NWT Advisory Committee on Midwifery? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for providing that clarification. The original midwifery report, NWT report, identified Inuvik as one of the four locations of interest, but Health has now decided to support doctors with obstetric skills instead, plus the one position. I am hearing concern about lack of consultation leading up to this decision in the Beaufort-Delta. It seems prudent to ask the public for their opinion before opting for a very different model that does not include midwives.

I ask the Minister who was consulted in the Beau-Del and what public engagement was conducted before the...

Thank you. I move we report progress.

---Defeated

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to welcome and recognize a bunch of young constituents and future leaders from the school in Ndilo, the K’alemi Dene School, and I wonder if they could stand up as I mention their names. We have here David Sangris, D.J. Drygeese, Aurora Fraser, Kaiya Goulet, Amy Betsina, Devon Vogel, Justin Lafferty, Cheyenne Lafferty, Stefon Franki, Nick Beaulieu, Kaydens Abel, Dakota Mackeinzo, Donovan Black Quitte, Riel Komrie, and they are accompanied by Tiffany Smith, education assistant; and teacher Anna Hernandez.

I’d like to just mention, when I asked this bunch of young...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don’t want to spend any more time on this, Madam Chair, but we’ve been interested before and an expression of interest is not a commitment. An expression of interest is curiosity. We need commitment. We have passed over and over again the opportunity to put in renewable energy to avoid these costs. We could do a much more significant effort here had we taken the sufficient funds last year to put in five megawatts that would have handled at least a third to a half of the monthly demands now forecasted in materials the Minister has provided us with from the Power...