Sandy Lee

As the Member stated, this is an issue that is very much alive among our Cabinet. It is an issue of discussion. This is the reason why we have a Deputy Ministers’ Steering Committee set up. That’s where we have directed for the officials who work on the technical side of the increasing demands of this program and Health is making their case on absolute necessity into expanding investments in this area so that we can continue to increase the accessibility of health care programming and service delivery in small communities. There is a steering committee set up to work on that and it’s very much...

We do have the position, but it is not filled. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Foundation for Change is a pretty straightforward, clearly written document about what the department is proposing to realign the way we deliver our services and what we are focusing on. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that over the three and a half years I’ve been here working with MLA Bisaro, she has an insatiable appetite for details. So instead of making a broad statement about lack of information, if the Member could tell me exactly what detail she is looking for, I’d be more than happy to provide her with the details she needs. Thank you.

That’s a government-wide work that we’re undertaking and it is a priority for our department. Our director of policy sits on the steering committee and we are involved.

Thank you. We will undertake to provide the Member with all the answers to the questions he raised.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The first item about nurses and how we’re going to make it possible for them to work here, obviously, as a government we are committed and wanting to make sure that we hire and keep as many of our northern nurses as possible. One thing the nurses are actually doing, we have communicated to the nurses who have written to us, is that they should not, actually they should, it’s not a bad thing if there’s local nurses being hired because that means there are jobs there for them to take. Secondly, they wouldn’t be responding to jobs advertising for nurses positions. They...

The department already spends a lot of money and effort on prevention and the recommendations suggest that we must expend that, which we, in principle, agree with, we need to come up with the resources. But I will have to look at the section that the Member is referring to because I am certain that we have every cent of that accounted for. So if we’re going to talk about reprofiling that, we need to have the full scope of the information so we know exactly what we’re changing.

I’m sure as we go through debating our budget in the next couple of days we will have a chance to do that, but I’d be...

No, there is a pretty strict and well laid out capital planning process that we need to meet to go through for all departments when they’re asking for new capital funding. We would have to work through that process and we don’t have the money set aside here for that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To my left is Paddy Meade, deputy minister of Health and Social Services; to my right is Mr. Derek Elkin, director of finance; and to my far right is Mr. Dana Heide, assistant deputy minister of operations. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, it was done internally in the department and by the program office, I think, in FMBS was involved as well. I think we talked about this three years ago. Thank you.