Katrina Nokleby

Mr. Speaker, I'm tired. It's been a very long and exhausting week with serious debates in the House that have taken a lot out of me and my colleagues. Last night, after an extended sitting in the Ledge, I was looking forward to heading home, snuggling in with my cats, and putting on some escapist TV to help myself unwind. However this is not how my evenings seem to go these days. Rather, my evenings are spent speaking with constituents and residents over the impending staffing crisis at Stanton Territorial Hospital.

This week in the House, I have tried to ask questions of the Health Minister as...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay, yeah, that makes sense to me. But I guess then my question would be as communities, you know, they're not deciding one year to the next to create infrastructure or build infrastructure, so will there not be an increased infrastructure cost or capital cost due to what's happened with COVID, say, for ongoing projects and how will communities deal with that increased cost if they  you know, if this budget is stagnant for this year, or these COVID years. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, yeah, I too just wanted to echo my colleague's disappointment to not see the extra two and a half million dollars here again this year. I know that the communities can really use that money.

I guess my question is of that money that was added to the MACA budgets, how many of that flowed through to the communities themselves and how much of that was taken up in either administrative or other MACA work and didn't actually get into the coffers of the community? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. If we could see that information. I did ask for a commitment for it to be shared. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, can the Minister of the department tell us where the Stanton legacy building renovations are at and is this the last time that we'll be seeing this item in the budget. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the Minister for her thoughtful answer. It's very important for the staff to be hearing from Cabinet that they take responsibility for what's going to on and that there's action that's going to happen.

My next question is what is the department going to do to compensate workers financially for the increased hazard of their work due to COVID as other jurisdictions have? Will this financial compensation be retroactive? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister responsible for HR. How can the Minister reassure staff at Stanton that it is worthwhile to participate in the current workplace survey being undertaken given the inaction of the government to act on them in the past. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I appreciate that. I think that the Minister and deputy minister are able to explain it more eloquently than I can ask about it and so I appreciate that they understood what I was trying to get at there. And I'm glad to hear that there are some capital reserves, but I would assume that's very community specific and not necessarily all communities would have that ability.

I guess more of a comment here too is just that this does seem like another area then, if we are  have communities relying on federal funding, and we've talked about it lots with the housing...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay, that's good. I appreciate that. I guess just the question is with the ongoing cost of operations, etcetera, and maybe it's just me not being knowledgeable of how this works, but I can't see that the O and M is going to escalate over the next couple years particularly due to the supply chain issues etcetera with COVID. So are we expecting  is there a formula that then adds money every year to this number, or will it be a recalculation coming. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That was more about asking for the lessons learned, which now stands to be a bit of a standard thing going forward.

Moving on, I just wanted to ask for an update on the Avens pavilion and kitchen and laundry. I know that it's slated to be completed in 2023 but does have a significant component of fundraising from the actual centre itself. So is it on track to be constructed as needed and if not, will the department be looking to provide additional funding if the community fundraising does not meet expectation. Thank you.