Sandy Lee

With all due respect, he is completely misinterpreting what I said about the website. Mr. Chairman, my answer was the grads coming out of Aurora College don’t need to go and respond to ads for nursing positions because we have a program that we are working with them, which is the Northern Graduate Employment Program. That has been set up for HR and so we have a separate path to facilitate them because we do want to work with them and we want to recruit and retain them. The question was why aren’t the jobs on the website so that they can apply, and my answer was they don’t necessarily have to...

Mr. Chairman, we need to look at that. I have committed to look at that. It will take a different way of thinking to be able to re-profile enough money to do it territorial-wide. It is really about closing the gap in the spectrum of services available. We have residential programming. We send people away. We have staff that work in the communities. But I take the Member’s point that we don’t have enough options for communities to tap into to do on-the-land healing programs. We do fund them, but it’s on an ad hoc basis and a project-by-project basis and whether we could get some money from the...

Mr. Chairman, yes, there is a need and there is room for more nurse practitioners. We have vacant positions in some communities for NPs. We don’t have a vacancy in Yellowknife, but in regions and in communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’re speaking about this year’s budget. We’re involved for ‘11 and ‘12. I can’t speak for future governments and future plans and that’s one more reason why we need to review this program. I mean, review the training needs and how Department of Health and Social Services system needs for trained people marry up with what we are doing in Aurora College in all of its branches and how HR works with us.

I think Members would agree we need to look at how we go forward. Thank you.

Thank you. We will get it to the Member. Thank you.

We believe it’s just a Collective Agreement increase. There is no enhancement in the programming. Thank you.

Yes, please, Mr. Chairman.

We have provided this info as a response to lots of questions that the Member has raised. He is right; he has raised this before. This program is oversubscribed; it went way beyond its budget. We have one person in there and we are spending all the money that we have available in that budget and we are not able to take in new people unless we come with new money, which is the reason why we need to review this as we need to review the Nurse Practitioner Program and nursing programs. We need to look at all the demands on educational programs for health and social services staffing and we need to...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That speaks to various programs that we have within the department which is funded to authorities to assist our residents who need special support. In Yellowknife we deliver that program through Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority who funds to YACL and YWCA and other homes and facilities. Is the Member asking for a specific dollar amount for that or is that program criteria that he’s looking for?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With that money we envision creating four family home visitors centres, two in the Deh Cho and two in Beau-Del. This is for the development and delivery of early intervention initiatives which will promote the development of a strength-based, solution-focused, family-centred delivery of support services. Specifically trained support workers who will work with families to optimize the home environment for the health and physical, mental and emotional well-being of children and families. This initiative is similar to the current Healthy Families Program model, which...