Jane Groenewegen

That is not the answer I was hoping for. There is no place for these folks to go if they vacate the building. We can’t wait until after the building is vacated and then start doing an assessment of whether or not it could be used as a long-term care facility. There are no other 10 long-term care beds in Hay River and we certainly don’t want to be shipping our people out of Hay River to other communities. We know that the years pass quickly in this place and the new facility will be open, it will be upon us. If we’re going to look at this as an option, this assessment would need to start to...

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Next on the list for general comments I have Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to follow up on the topic raised by my colleague for Hay River North. It is a very important and very pressing issue at this time.

The good news is we’re all living longer. The bad news is this government has to find the capital to deal with providing long-term and extended stay care beds for our aging population.

This is a fact, that there are 10 long-term care beds in the existing Hay River hospital. Another fact is that the new health centre does not anticipate having any long-term care beds. So there is a timeline that’s fast coming upon us. The new...

I would like to call Committee of the Whole to order. Tabled Document 9-17(4), NWT Main Estimates, 2013-2014, is the only matter before the committee today. What is the wish of committee? Mr. Menicoche.

Again, not wanting to pre-empt any kind of process or notification to employees or anything, but is the Premier able to be any more specific about those positions?

I thank the Premier for that. Those are good and valid concerns. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves here. Could we get a general approximation? Would it be safe to say that of those 14 new positions and four relocated positions – and I realize that this is not the Premier’s, it is the Finance Minister’s role to answer this question – would it be safe to say that eight or 10 of those are coming to Hay River?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not used to being upstaged, but here I go.

---Laughter

This year’s budget includes a total of $5.15 million for energy initiatives. According to this Cabinet, 7 percent of this budget will go to energy planning. The Government of the Northwest Territories has a consistent track record of spending millions on energy studies, surveys, strategies and public consultation; yet, for all the energy that has gone into energy planning, we only pay more for heat and power every year. For all the planning, two of our communities are in dire need of reliable energy sources. The...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your committee has been considering Tabled Document 9-17(4), NWT Main Estimates, 2013-2014, and would like to report progress. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with. Thank you.

I thank the Premier for that. I think there’s actually a lot more but it’s probably not easy with where we are in the business plans to identify all of those, so we will stay tuned and get updates as they become available.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Premier if he could confirm that the 18 positions that are referred to in the budget address yesterday, is that the total extent of the decentralization being looked at for this fiscal year? Thank you.