Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I'm always willing to meet with any groups. You know, like I said, I'll meet with Indigenous groups, I'll meet with any groups. I'll meet with Members. You know, and I hear the Member and, you know, and I fully understand where, you know, this  like I said, these are some decisions that we had to make. But, again, I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We will be working with the Indigenous governments, and the Indigenous governments are going to be the one that are being to be hiring the staff. We will be supporting those staff with our program. So kind of working together and supporting them in whatever capacity that we need to support those residents that will be living in that facility. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. All the health centres that have health centre nurses in them do. The health cabins, however, do not. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I fully remember the Don't Be a Butt Head campaign. This schoolbased smoking prevention program was delivered for about nine years as part of the healthy choices framework. In about 2015, there was a shift toward incorporating tobacco cessation into a broader cancer prevention and community wellness initiative. And therefore the funding for Don't Be a Butt Head was absorbed into other budgets. The department has continued to work with delivering supports in substance use and education in school. The new one that they have is the what they call The Dope Experience. So...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this was part of the restoring balance. And so those conversations happened and so we had to make some tough choices, as many Ministers will speak to some of the tough choices that we had to make as a government. So thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, we usually end up having all of the budgeted item for physicians used up by the permanent and the locum doctors, and sometimes we may even go over, so.

Yes. Thank you.

I'm not sure how I answer quite that cheaper and smarter, providing health care services in the Northwest Territories to, you know, birthing people that are waiting to have babies is always going to be cheaper. Having staff that we can, you know using locums, bringing locums in, they you know, that's been one of the areas that we you know, even with locums, that is we try to hire fulltime first and then if we can't hire fulltime, then we go to terms, which locums are more for physicians. That's the term they use for physicians. We use terms, term contracts with nurses, which are fully...

I don't have that level of detail. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, thank you. Medical travel is, I think, probably one of the standing agenda items with Indigenous governments. Every Indigenous government that we speak to will raise this issue. I am committed to continuing to work with Indigenous governments and hearing what their concerns are with how we move patients.

They've also stressed the issues from the Council of Leaders to Indigenous Service Canada, how we move patients. So it's not just the government policy part. It's the work that we're doing on the NIHB medical travel policy with you know, in collaboration with Indigenous governments. So...