Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to ask the Minister when his department will begin bringing forward plans to staff health centres or nursing stations that are without nurses in communities. How many communities does the Northwest Territories have without nurses at their health centres?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I look forward to some of the rationale and to see where we go from there.

I want to ask the Minister, in light of the recent attention that the Sahtu is receiving with the oil and gas exploration activities and the number of workers coming into the region, when we’re looking at medevacs, it seems logical that a community such as Norman Wells would serve the Sahtu region and would be more stabilized in terms of medevacs for our region.

I want to ask the Minister, when the evaluation is being looked at, that the community of Norman Wells or the Sahtu is the hotspot or it...

Madam Chair, maybe I could have expanded a little more on the question. That is the answer from the deputy minister, is usually a normal backup plan is to provide by the carrier. Sometimes that may not be the case. If one plane is not available, and another aircraft carrier is not available, then what is the backup, say, in the Sahtu region if the aircraft are not available and we have an aircraft company sitting in the Sahtu and just sitting at North-Wright in Norman Wells? Are they being asked to help with the medevac services for that period of time? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My questions have to do with medevacs in the Northwest Territories. I want to ask the department when will this exist, and who and when will this contract be up for renewal, or when is the department going to go out for additional airline companies to look at this contract.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the process of the application for fracking does go through in the Sahtu possibly next month, possibly this summer, do we have enough protection for the people of the Northwest Territories, protection for the people in the Sahtu region that we could withstand the test of the application saying yes, we have the baseline information? Can the Minister assure me we have the baseline information on the animals, the water, the air, the things that need to be to ensure our lifestyle will remain intact, even if we go ahead with the fracking?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are directed to the Minister of ENR regarding the fracking technology that will possibly be used in the Sahtu. I want to ask the Minister regarding this technology what the Environment and Natural Resources baseline data information he’s using to measure the impacts and quality of land, air, water, animals. What type of information does he have to look at the types of impacts that fracking could cause in our region?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is said water is life and life is water. Hydraulic fracking will be a big issue for the Northwest Territories now. During the review of the Department of Natural Resources’ budget, some of the Members of this side of the House shared some concerns about fracking because of the oil and gas development in the Sahtu, and that it’s putting pressure on the Government of the Northwest Territories, federal regulatory and Aboriginal organizations to make decisions about the use of this technology.

Fracking would make us wealthy, but at what cost? The process involves blasting...

Under medical equipment under $50,000, the funding for the minor medical equipment purchases, I wanted to thank the Minister of Health. One time when he went to Colville Lake, that certainly helped us with a dental chair. I believe it was Mr. Miltenberger who was the Minister of Health at that time. These simple things in our health centres that we have medical equipment that sometimes gets overlooked. Certainly, now the people in Colville Lake talk about that incident where the Minister had to come to the health centre to look at some of the equipment that we have there. They were second hand...

I look forward to the plan the Minister is working on and how we move this plan forward. How many communities are without a nurse stationed at their health centres?

I’m looking forward to the actuals in the evaluation. We’re looking at the quality of medical services in our community. I wanted to ask the Minister on the monitoring of how many medevacs, and the Minister said he would look at the actuals. How many medevacs in the community for each month, is it monthly, seasonal, or annually? How we are measuring ourselves? Right now there’s one carrier that does all the medevacs in the Northwest Territories. How do we measure that in terms of services? They might be quite busy; they might be doing a really good job. I’m not too sure.

Like I said, there are...