Shauna Morgan

I was saying there's a difference between throwing chunks of funding haphazardly for community events and throwing shortterm chunks of funding haphazardly to keep roofs over peoples' heads. And so I don't want to stand here and plead with the government to have a heart and please donate money to these heroic organizations because that's part of what got us into this mess thinking that we can just offer charity when we have extra money in our pockets. I'm asking this government to think practically about what services our residents expect and how we can make longer term plans to collaborate...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, then, in dealing with these nonprofits who have been providing the same basic social services in our communities year after year, often for decades, to what extent does the GNWT negotiate these contracts and the terms of reference for the funding contributions collaboratively with those nonprofits? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Premier, who is also the Minister for Executive and Indigenous Affairs. Does the government keep any inventory of contracts for essential social services and housing that are delivered by nonprofits in our communities?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to reflect today on the problematic way that our government funds and works with nonprofit organizations who are providing essential social services. Yesterday in Committee of the Whole, I raised the urgent situation of the Spruce Bough supportive living housing facility where the nonprofit Yellowknife Women Society is housing and providing wraparound services for 26 people with complex medical needs and addictions issues.

Ever since this facility opened its doors in 2020 with capital funding support from the feds, it's been cobbling together shortterm operational...

I will just add a final request is whether the Minister can commit to providing us with similar statistics on overtime costs from I would like it specifically for Stanton Hospital that show trends over the past decade from preCOVID to the present. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a followup, can the Minister explain how we're monitoring progress on retention over time? So specifically on retention, I know it's easy to combine recruitment and retention, but I'm specifically talking about retention in this case, but are we monitoring progress and monitoring retention rates over time and publishing the results of that?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to recognize three of the pages that are helping us out here today from Yellowknife North. We have Kijel Ulbricht, Kaize Roach, and Kate McShane. Thank you for your work here today. And a visitor in the gallery from my riding, Georgina Rolt.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I want to talk about health care which is clearly a priority for Members here although perhaps we have different areas of top concern.

It's our largest operating budget. And to be clear, a lot is at stake here. Much more than money. It's a matter of preserving lives and taking care of people when they're suffering the most and providing a sense of security for our families, as Mr. Nerysoo was just describing. But it should alarm us that NTHSSA has been bleeding money since it was established with an accumulated deficit of at least $200 million.

Now, I have many...

Yeah, and I understand this may not be able to be resolved today, but I think it speaks to sort of a dilemma we have that, you know, this is this is not a new initiative or like a temporary initiative. It's at the moment keeping 26 people housed that otherwise would be on the street and yeah, I guess I'll leave that for now but just wanting to put out that in the future I think we need to reconsider how we fund services like this, that I think we would all agree are essential and sometimes we do inhouse and sometimes contract out but very much take for granted that there are volunteers and...

Okay. That's all the questions I have at this moment for around Education, Culture and Employment. I assume they'll be an opportunity to return when we get to other departments if okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair.