Robert Bouchard

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to speak about a national icon that’s been removed from the Northwest Territories.

On October 24, 2011, the Greyhound service was removed from Hay River. Greyhound provides a service throughout the nation. On that date we lost that service in the Northwest Territories. That service continues to serve the Yukon and I’ve been informed that potentially the Yukon is supporting that process to continue because it is important. The community of Hay River and the South Slave, since it’s been removed, have suffered some difficulties without it.

This is a service...

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful to the Minister for looking into that. My other area of concern I had in my Member’s statement was the flexibility of funding. As I indicated, we have funding for permanent doctors in Hay River. We currently don’t have any, but we have been using nurse practitioners, but the funds to fund those nurse practitioners are column funded so we can’t use the doctors’ funds to do that.

Has the Minister come up with a solution and been able to allow the community, the authority for Hay River to do some flexibility in these funds?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated in my Member’s statement, I had questions for the Minister of Health. The community of Hay River had a management board in place before; now it has been replaced with a public administrator. Will the Minister look at putting a public advisory board into the community of Hay River?

That’s good. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have been asking the Minister this question for quite a long time about this flexibility, and he keeps going back to the FMBS and the solution. I am wondering when the Minister will commit to completing this process.

The community of Hay River wants to have coroners, nurse practitioners, wants to be able to use their funds so that the community can have a better health care system. When will the Minister commit to getting this flexibility in funds?

Mr. Speaker, I understand the Minister’s issues with that. In the interim, the public has no effective way of communicating their concerns in the community with health issues. There is one public administrator, one person. If you don’t know that person… I am looking to see if the Minister would allow for an advisory board. I am not looking for the management of the operations; I am looking for an advisory board to give the public administrator some feedback from the community so that we can branch out the contacts in the community so that the community feels like they’re engaged with their...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I will continue my discussion on some of the issues in the area of health for Hay River. One of the major issues in Hay River is the fact that, back several years ago, the government removed the management board and replaced it with a public administrator. Although the administrator is doing a good job, there is still a lot of outcry from the community to have some sort of advisory board so that the community from different walks of life can give information and feedback to the health authority so that we can have representation and see what the issues are. We...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to begin by congratulating the Department of Human Resources for the GNWT being named Top 100 Employer in Canada. I think that’s hard work from the department throughout, I guess, but HR being responsible and one of the main leads on that.

My other opening comments would be about the job creation. The Minister talked about decentralization and devolution. We’ve also created a bunch of jobs this year. My indication is 56. I am just wondering what the process is from HR’s perspective on what different departments have to do when they create a new position. Are...

I guess it’s those decentralization positions that I have some concern about. Devolution is a discussion of, there’s also opportunity for that area as well. One of the biggest concerns that I have with that is the Minister has indicated that they’re committed to decentralization and getting those devolution positions eventually out to the regions, but I haven’t seen a lot of activity or a lot of planning discussion on them making sure that communities are prepared for it.

I know in Yellowknife they’re building a new office building here that there’s probably going to be some available space...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated in my statement, I am just a little bit bewildered that we’re making a 50-year plan without some of these answers already being made.

My question is to the Minister of Health. Has the existing hospital, the old hospital, been part of their assessment for keeping the long-term care beds in Hay River? Have they included that in their assessment?