Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Clearly the Member must have been a negotiator at one time. I/m not sure how many questions she has left, but, yes, I'll commit to that as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member makes some very sweeping statements. She indicated in her Member’s statement she met with six people at her constituency meeting. Stanton has over 500 employees. While I recognize there are employee concerns out there, very clearly we also have, for the most part, a facility that is running very well. What I am prepared to offer the Member is if the Member is interested as a chair of the Social Programs committee, I would be happy to set up a full briefing for the committee and bring in the deputy minister, we could bring in the folks from Stanton. We can...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there is clearly a medical diagnosis that is made. If there is an emergency medevac that comes in from a community, clearly that person, since they required a medevac and have some significant medical condition, would be given immediate attention over and above somebody that may have walked in because they forgot to get a prescription filled or have some much more minor complaint. So there already is that type of assessment process that is done by the medical staff at Stanton. It applies to all of the people that come in through the door to make sure...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'll commit to the Member that I'll work with the deputy and we'll ensure that steps are taken so there is consultation in a free and open environment with not only the management but the staff; as she indicated, unit by unit. We will compile that information and we will look at what comes out of that and how best to respond to that particular feedback. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to recognize a constituent from Fort Smith, one of the new regional directors, Mr. Bob Sanderson who a way back in 1963 was also one of the supervisors at Breynat Hall when I was there in the junior boys' side.

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have been working on the issue of wait times for some time now. We have added doctors. We are putting in a new OR system. We have added nurses. We are trying to get more OR nurses. We have in the plans a consolidated clinic in Yellowknife that is going to, we believe, take significant pressure off of the emergency ward in Stanton. When it is complete, it will allow access for the very many people inside and outside of Yellowknife that come to Yellowknife looking for services to be able to go into the clinic and get a lot of the basic testing and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If the Member will recollect, last year there was a package of programs and subsidies and incentives that we did have. That money was voted by this Legislature to do the very things the Member asked. There were a lot of good ideas in there and the ideas the Member has mentioned are good ideas. We have them on our list and we are always looking for ways to implement them. As I indicated, if there is an opportunity to access federal money that will allow us to do that, we will do that. I will ask the deputy, as well, to check to see if we have some unsubscribed...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member has an obligation to raise the issues with his constituents, and my responsibility as Minister is to look at that and make sure that we respond to circumstances and to issues in a very measured and careful way. We are doing that. I've committed to the Member for Range Lake that we would have an outline of how we intend to proceed to honour the commitment to have the staff consulted in a free and open environment where they could get full feedback, and we would provide the preliminary feedback that we are getting within two weeks. So it's within that time...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will give it to the Member before the start of the House tomorrow with information on each of those positions and the status of where they may be in the hiring process, recognizing that I know the importance of this. The Member is talking about this, and I will commit to do that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, some of the examples are the participation and the development of community energy plans from Norman Wells, Yellowknife and other communities, including Fort Smith, Enterprise, Gameti, Deline and Fort McPherson. This is a critical first step that will allow communities to look at what their energy consumption patterns are. Whati is also on the list. They are sort of a model community of all of the steps they have taken to try to save energy in terms of efficient furnaces, low energy and low water, fluorescent bulbs and those types of things. We are...