Julian Morse

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of health.

Mr. Speaker, I think my statement spoke for itself so would repeat what I said. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister of health commit to defining and publicly communicating what access to health care will mean once we achieve the reforming primary care goal? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I spoke to the need for clear and measurable targets related to our goal of reforming primary care and based on the answers the Minister shared in response to my questions, I want to continue on that thread today.

Yesterday, the Minister stated that the goal of primary health care reform is to ensure that all residents have access to culturally safe, team based, primary and community care, and then to establish integrated care pathways to support seamless integration and continuity across various health and social services and levels of care.

Mr...

Okay, thank you, Madam Chair. I do understand the Minister's need to throw a caveat there that there's more than just the GNWT at the table. But, you know, would just say there's going to be disagreements sometimes when we're moving these things forward but we also have to at some point move things forward. As I noted, you know, five years, that's a long time. And we've had this conversation about a bunch of different Acts and regs, and, you know, there was a Forest Act in the last Assembly. You know, there is a need to move legislation forward regardless of the various kind of disagreements...

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I do appreciate the department keeping the fire burning on that and setting it as a priority and moving that forward.

I am curious to know -- I mean, my understanding is that some of the issues related to kind of dated legislation were supposed to be addressed by the new Public Lands Act. Why have we not made more progress on implementing that Act? It looks to me like the review substantially happened five years ago, and yet we don't have it in place. Can the department kind of help us understand what's the hold up. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just let me get my computer logged in here; still just coming off the break. Okay, thank you, Madam Chair.

I wanted to ask some questions about something that's come up a number of times about bulk land transfers. So I just really want to first ask what is getting in the way of transferring land to the city of Yellowknife? Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just going to gently push back a little bit. I mean, I do note that -- you know, I'm going to go -- every single department is going to get the targets and measurable outcome speech, and I don't want to spare ECC from this speech.

Without measurable outcomes and without targets, it's hard for us to know when we're achieving something. So it's also hard to know how much of a priority it is for the department. So I want to state for myself implementation of the audit recommendations are important, and I think they are critical to the mandate commitment that this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that offer. Certainly, I'll talk to my colleagues, and hopefully we accept that briefing.

Mr. Speaker, it's great to have a goal, but we also need to know when are we trying to achieve it by. So I appreciate that we are working to have equitable access for all NWT residents to primary care. I would suggest that we add the word universal, meaning everybody, has that access. But, Mr. Speaker, when are we -- when is that goal going to be achieved; when do we anticipate being able to tell every resident in the NWT that they have equitable...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of health, and it's quite simple. Mr. Speaker, what is our goal for primary care in the NWT?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Those are all my questions for now.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The next question I had was about I note that there's quite a significant increase in the FireSmart area.

Now, assuming that this is related to delivery of FireSmarting, which it looks like it is according to the notes in the budget here, I'm very supportive of that and happy to see it actually, so maybe the first question I'll ask is whether that can be confirmed that this actually does increase the amount of FireSmarting that's going to be done in the territory, and perhaps if the Minister can provide us some details on where that funding's going to be going. Are there...