Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, ultimately the Ministers do have some responsibility encouraging their departments to complete and prepare their human resource plans. The deputies report to the Premier who also is responsible for giving the direction to them to meet those conditions. It's kind of a shared responsibility, Mr. Chair. I mean, I work with both the Department of Health and Social Services and Human Resources to make sure that they are developing theirs, and I know the Ministers are doing the same, but it's a shared responsibility.

The budget is before the House. We are going through the budget. Hopefully we'll do Health and Social Services in the next couple of days. There is no money for the implementation of a prescription drug monitoring program in this budget, but we do have the steering committee. We do fund the work they're doing within existing resources, and that work is going to continue. We are still moving forward; we are still quantifying what a prescription drug monitoring program will cost. We are looking at how to incorporate e-Health and electronic medical records, and we are working with pharmacies to...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the appeal process is fairly strict and I mean fairly thorough as the Member's indicating and it is based on procedure. I think the Member's talking about something else and I don’t believe at this time we're putting any mechanisms to have that discussion. However, having said that, I'm a strong advocate and I'm encouraging the Members to have their constituents who approach them who have concerns about, you know, their inability to get a job with the Government of Northwest Territories to get in touch with some of the individual client service managers that...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'm not sure what the rationale was for the increase in the main estimates in 2015-16. We'll have to go to Michelle for some detail on that. But what I was indicating is we've reduced the amount to what we actually spend and traditionally spend over time in this particular area. We may have had a spike in one year. I'm not sure what the rationale was there, I wasn't around at that time, but our traditional expenditures, what we actually spend, is about $35,000.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have developed a steering committee, as the Member mentioned in her Member's statement, to review options around prescription drug monitoring, and we've asked them to come back with recommendations on best approaches that would be appropriate here in the Northwest Territories. We do know that the most effective monitoring method needs to be consistent with the department's emerging suite of e-Health tools, such as electronic medical records. At this time, there have not been any final recommendations provided by the committee on how to improve or implement a...

Sorry, I'm a little confused. I thought we were talking about the fees and payment line. Which line are we talking about?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, for the specifics on that detail I will go to Michelle, or Ms. Simpson, my apologies.

Yes, thank you. In August 2014, Yellowknife Health and Social Services hired 17, Stanton hired 17 summer students, Beaufort-Delta hired eleven, Fort Smith hired seven, Deh Cho hired one, Sahtu hired one, and the TCSA hired one. There is actually a fair amount of hiring of summer students happening in the health authorities. I will get that information for the Member. I will just point out that I mean, yes, our numbers are lower than they were last year, but in some places we're doing a little bit better. In Hay River… It happens to be one of the communities; we're actually doing a little bit...

This is a conversation we do have at the Cabinet table. I regularly share the information on where we are with respect to affirmative action. That information is available to the Ministers by department. I also continually push the different programs and opportunities available to the individual departments, like the Regional Recruitment Program and things like the geographical hiring for non-statutory jobs. I am happy to continue to push this as a priority. I'm happy to help move this government towards a public service that represents the population that it serves. We do have challenges, Mr...