Kevin A. Menicoche

I guess it involves working with the Deh Cho Health and Social Services Authority. Just moving forward to the next step towards that commitment, I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services to examine it and can he commit to research it to see what kind of resources we need to establish nursing services in Wrigley.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. It is one of our government’s priorities to bring health services as close as possible to the people who need them, but we still have communities without nurses. Wrigley is one of these communities. Three years ago I thought we were making progress towards restoring this critical service for the people there, then the Deh Cho Health and Social Services Authority decided not to go ahead. It seems to have forgotten about it ever since. Why our government has not insisted that nursing service in Wrigley is a priority I do not know. It is time to revisit that...

Madam Chair, I can assure the Minister that’s the confidence that the leadership of Fort Liard and the constituents do want me to raise this issue. I would like to get some assurance that the Minister can begin the process of negotiating or talking with the BC government in advance of him coming over to Fort Liard. I know that we’re working on something for him to come over in June, but I don’t want the Minister to go there and say, thank you for letting me know, we’ll check into it now. He should be checking into it. That’s why I’m raising it in this House and raising it during Member’s...

Just for the Minister’s last point, I think, as we determine new positions, that’s got to be one of the qualifiers. It doesn’t have to be Yellowknife all the time. Just because they’ve got the said infrastructure or whatever reasoning that their planners come up with for these new positions, they should always ask the question as part of their assessment. Can it be in the regions? Can it be in the communities? I’d like to ask the Minister if, in the future, he’s willing to consider that with his department officials.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I might be actually jumping ahead of myself, but it is under directorate. Just in terms of active positions. I don’t know if Madam Chair will allow me to ask that. There’s an increment of four positions over the last fiscal year. Maybe I can ask the Minister about that.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’m glad that ENR is now working with Enbridge Pipelines. How soon does that information get to the Department of ENR should there be another incident, as it were?

The media report that I had looked at wasn’t really clear whether it was contaminated by crude oil or something else. Was Enbridge able to tell the Minister in their briefing exactly what the source of that contamination was?

Mr. Speaker, the Minister had directed me to the Minister of ENR. If I can do that and ask him, has he had an update from Enbridge Pipelines on the contaminated soil that was dug up on the remediation digs? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I just want to commend your Page Program for the small communities, because this week we had two young students from the Echo Dene School out of Fort Liard: Ms. Kali Norn and Michael Bertrand-Sassie. I would also like to recognize the hard work of their chaperone, Ms. Sylvia Bertrand. Welcome to the Legislative Assembly, and I hope you had a great week. Hopefully we’ll see you back here one day, maybe in this chair.

Madam Chair, I think for the most part, residents of Fort Liard do have some type of working relationship just on an individual basis, so we’re going to have to work to support that, because I know that even some of the elders, when they get sick, end up in the Fort Nelson hospital. I’m glad for them because they are closer to family, cousins and relatives, but we have to support it and look for some kind of model and arrangements to continue those services there. Then we’ll begin on the whole area of dental services as well. That’s something that residents would like to go to Fort Nelson for...