Katrina Nokleby

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the Member bringing this bill forward as well, and it was interesting to be the deputy chair on a Private Member's bill and get to learn that kind of aspect of it.

The Member did hear me say about the idea of being maybe innovative and adding this on to sort of the engagement or the piece that would be done for other professions. And I'm just wondering if she would speak to whether she thought that was actually possible given that she's much more procedurally minded than I am, and I often go to her to answer my procedure questions. I'd like to get her thought...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, Bill 80, Dental Hygienists Profession Statutes Amendment Act, received second reading in the Legislative Assembly on March 30th, 2023, and was referred to the Standing Committee on Social Development for review. The standing committee held a public hearing in Yellowknife on May 12th, 2023. Committee heard from two stakeholders at the meeting at the hearing and received two written submissions on the bill. Bill 80 will designate dental hygienists as their own profession and provide dental hygienists with the option to work independently of a dentist.

Committee...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. They may have been looked at, but I don't think they were really considered given that I have not been able to find any information on why Tin Can Hill was selected out of all of these groups.

The Minister speaks to the fact of the lack of area for expansion around the capital site and sight lines and things like that. Well, the sight lines, we can change. We're consensus. We can pass things so that we can look at a building across Frame Lake. I think we'd all be fine with that.

When we talk about the expansion piece, this would actually be an opportunity for once the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Given that the funding is still required to come from Canada to complete the new North Slave Campus, has the department given any thought to reengaging with the public on the proposed location of the polytechnic university? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, time and time again I have heard from constituents and residents of their concerns with the proposed location of the polytechnic university. Although the Minister pointed me to the Facilities Master Plan Engagement Report to explain how he chose Tin Can Hill, I feel as if he engaged on the criteria of a site without really thinking of the operational and, more importantly, the emotional implications of this site. Mr. Speaker there are real, practical concerns with the Tin Can Hill site.

Traffic to the campus would be directed along School Draw Avenue or cut...

Thank you, Madam Chair. And to answer my colleague's question, no, I won't be now having a baby in order to take advantage of these. My colleague from Nunakput, not Kam Lake, sorry.

I did want to say echo the sentiments as well that, you know, having been a part of this Assembly, to have this many women in and to see the changes that have occurred because of that, not only in our procedures but just some of the things that have happened where the conversations around earrings that we seem to have. We joke that the number 1 thing said here in this House sometimes is who made your earrings. And...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just don't accept these reasons that are being provided as to why this date needs to be pushed back even further. There's no reason that this could not be done with a professional association somewhere else. We have seen that in numerous other professions where because we don't have the people or the bodies to populate our own, we often will use others. For example, NAPEG uses the board of examiners for engineers in Alberta because we can't maintain that here on our own. So I do think that there was there is a method and a way that this could have been done by using...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Has the Member had any and this is probably quite a high or wishful question. But does she have any idea how much not having this dental hygienist practice or this ability to have preventative care is really costing us as a territory? Was there any work done around characterizing or quantifying how much money are we spending to send people either to Yellowknife, to the south? Why, when we're waiting for things that are preventative to become emergent situations? We obviously are paying more for that. Does the Member have any feel for how much money we would save by...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker or sorry, Mr. Chair. Maybe next go around.

Mr. Speaker, I'm quite frustrated with this entire process and how this has gone. You know, the decisions and reasons that were given to me, or to us as a committee from the department and the Minister regarding why this could not go ahead as of now or even in the two years that we've compromised on, they don't wash with me. Some of these things are things that such as well, no dental hygienist brought this forward. Well, they're busy. They're working. Everybody's trying to get into dental appointments. So just because they...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't reiterate everything that my colleague from Kam Lake said, and I don't think I actually could after this long day in the House and week as well so far. I did just want to say that I too am disappointed that we didn't get this bill further along and kind of did get stuck in this conversation that ultimately did not end up going anywhere. However, I shouldn't say it that way because it really did sort of bring back the importance of ensuring the entire Government of the Northwest Territories has the same approach and all of the bills and acts have the same...