Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Madam Chair. Right now, if we're on projection to hit that, and a bad forest fire season costs us $50 million, we don't want to ever be in a position where we are going to exceed our borrowing limit. When I hear that that projection takes us to the life of this Assembly, exceeding it, does the Minister of Finance have a plan or specifically a number that we want to be below our borrowing limit at the end of this Assembly? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Firstly, can I get a sense of how many people have accessed the NWT Wage Top-Up Program? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have had multiple constituent issues of records missing, but the problem is: they do not have access to that electronic medical record system. A portal accomplishes exactly that, is that they can keep a file up-to-date. As the Minister said, there is lots of work to do in this area. COVID, I think, has pushed this work to the forefront. Is there a digital health strategy coming forward with some of the lessons learned and some of the paths we have to go down that will answer these questions such as maybe by 2023, whether we will have this portal? My question to the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm happy to hear that, and I recognize that one step, as I said previously, is getting the portal. The whole other step is populating it, and how we actually start to publish and release our data. I have a few more questions about the eServices portal in that I think we've got some of the low-hanging fruit in fishing licences, the DVM, which is already online, kind of moving that into one place. I believe there are going to be healthcare cards, marriage certificates; some basic information was in there.

Ultimately, what I would really like is this information shared...

I look forward to bringing up this issue in the next Assembly as it was brought up in the last, as well. I understand we are now shopping for a new electronic medical records system. I heard that was 2023. Can the Minister commit that as part of going out and purchasing a new system, an online patient portal will be part of that system?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Looking back, I support the creation of ISSS, and in many ways, I actually do not think it went far enough in that, still, when I want to ask questions about data, I notice the corporate information management is in Infrastructure, and they have been taking years to get all of our departments on DIIMS; when I want to ask questions about ATIPP and trying to figure out that, I go to Justice; when I want to ask questions about open data, the policy actually lies with EIA, so despite a lot of resistance, perhaps just some centralization of information systems. I still do...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In November, I passed a motion in this House asking the Northwest Territories health system to stop using fax machines to send health records. This is from a 2018 report where the Chief Information and Privacy Commissioner asked the same thing. There have been numerous breaches over the years, including some egregious ones such as health records being sent to CBC North in 2010 and 2012.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that the Minister in the reply can finally put an end to us sending health records. However, Mr. Speaker, there is a lot more to do in the area of electronic medical...

Thank you, Madam Chair. In the department's business plan and in the mandate, there are a number of issues related to increasing capacity in the healthcare system, and there is a specific health recruitment unit. Can I just get clarification whether that lies in the Department of Finance HR or in Health and Social Services? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That's unfortunate. We seem to be stuck in this never-ending cycle of getting a notice to bargain and then bargaining taking years so we can never amend the Public Service Act, and then we get another notice to bargain.

Is it possible to seek agreement from the union to bring the act forward even while there is a notice of bargain or to make the change that allows us to bring the act forward despite that happening? I'm just trying to see if there is a workaround with the union's consent because they themselves have identified some changes that that they would like for...

If the Minister wants to look at what it looks like, we just had an election. In 2016, the Gwich'in had an online election, and then in 2019, they decided to add telephone voting because it was more accessible for their elders. There are already small communities with software in place using this for their elections. I would like to give those same communities the ability to run their community elections with online voting. The NWTAC passed a resolution asking for this. I don't know how much more they can identify a priority. They have an AGM; they pass resolutions and ask us to do things. Is...