Robert Hawkins

Well yeah, I'll start with that. That's a good point. Seven too many, of course. And I spoke to one who was a former nurse in the Northwest Territories, and she told me it's way more lucrative to quit her job and move south to become an agency nurse. Mr. Speaker, as I said, what is the department doing to reengineer the nursing agency problem and to define this; what is the issue that seems to be blocking the problem that the department doesn't seem to understand? Why are nurses quitting to become agency nurses to come back home to the Northwest Territories and work?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to have questions for the Minister of health as well, and as a matter of fact I have doctor questions but I was just realizing I have nursing agency questions, so I'm going to build on my colleague's questions here, Mr. Speaker.

What has the department done to reengineer the nursing agency problem because this is an attack on the health system as pointed out by my good colleague. And even the Premier of Manitoba has defined it as a crisis and attack on the health system. So in other words, to the question, Mr. Speaker, what is the department doing...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to the orders of the day, item number 5. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate your eye on the clock because, my goodness, we'd be through question period before we got to all the Members based on some of these answers.

She said we're doing whatever we can. You're paying the agencies too much. It's that simple. That simple. Mr. Speaker, money is the problem and the Minister says well, you know, I don't know but the reality is people leaving here because they know they get paid more coming back here. It's not about family.

So, Mr. Speaker, my question specifically to the Minister is is she willing to table publicly a wage comparison...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I've recently talked to some nurses let me try it again. Agency nurses; there we go. So I'm not sure, there's six, there's ten, there's a hundred; I have no idea. How does the Minister know that there's this minimum, or maximum as she's trying to describe as six or seven, and where are they? I'm trying to because if she says the numbers are so low, it should be easy to explain where they are. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It comes as no surprise to you, and all the Members of this House, that how important it is to have a family doctor on your health care journey. So whether you live in the Mackenzie Delta or you live in the Sahtu, I can tell you it matters to them. I mean how many times have people from Aklavik driven all the way to Inuvik to find a new doctor that they have to explain their story to them over and over again? How many times does someone from Deline have to take that goat trail all the way to the Wells to explain their story why they need their prescription changed or...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to return and thank you, colleagues, by the way to recognition of visitors in the gallery. A near and dear friend of mine, their son is a page today. And he wasn't in the gallery earlier when we did it, and I wanted to recognize him when he was here, Mr. Seth Gordon. Thank you very much for being a page in the Legislative Assembly.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to return to item number 7 on the orders of the day. Thank you.

A hallmark of consensus government, Mr. Speaker, is Members work with the Cabinet and the Cabinet works with the Members on this side of the House, at times to discuss policy changes. We're working together to find solutions together. You know, sometimes we even talk about issues in advance of them becoming public policies. But that's not to say Members have a veto, Mr. Speaker. No, my goodness. Members' input matters a lot. Sometimes maybe even we put it to the point is it is fundamental to how consensus government is built around here. It defines the difference on how we do business here...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The further qualification to the overall thing is this is a 90day estimate or interim estimate, and maybe for the public's sense and on the record, that is and we'll just say by way of example, the Assembly doesn't support the contract or initiative called the Widget. I'm not going to pick on anyone in particular because we don't want anyone to get the wrong message here. So if the Assembly chose to support the Widget initiative that had currently being the 90day proposal but we decide to vote against it, delete it in the at the let's say the advancement of the...