Shauna Morgan

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess where I'm getting caught up is that a needs assessment is one thing; a planning study for a specific 24-bed long-term care facility is a big step forward from an initial needs assessment. And so what I would rather see is a budget item come forward for this is -- we're going to do a needs assessment this year, and it's going to include that data that we plan to get next year, but when we're asked for the next capital year to allocate $2 million to a planning study, that seems much bigger than a needs assessment, and it doesn't seem wise to package together the...

Thank you. That is actually great news to hear that this is being actively worked on and considered. I would urge the department to move forward with this -- you know, to continue to pursue this and, you know, if it's a matter of taking a little bit of extra money, considering bringing this forward in a future capital budget, I can't imagine that, you know, an outdoor space with some seating or something would break the bank in terms of our capital budget. So I would encourage the department to continue to pursue that. I'm running out of time so I'll leave it there. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So my understanding from the Minister's response to previous questions is that there would be a capacity of 85 people during the day and an overnight capacity of 31 designated sleeping spaces. Is there any potential within the current design to have more designated sleeping spaces, if there's a capacity of 85 people during the day, to allow more of those people to be able to sleep there if they need to? Because as we know, we are really struggling to find enough sleeping spaces for people in Yellowknife. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I wanted to ask some questions about the wellness and recovery centre plan. So I know that the design work has already been completed, and the project is close to breaking ground. But my hope would be that there could be some opportunities to tweak the design to ensure that it provides services more in line with what we need now in terms of the populations it is intended to serve and the needs that they have. So I want to ask a few questions related to the operational aspects of the building that might have an impact on the capital side, because I think it's best...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So can the Premier clarify whether the work of the health care sustainability unit will include workforce planning. So that could include how many clinicians and which kinds of clinicians we'll need to deliver integrated care to all NWT residents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Premier around the health care sustainability unit. So the first question is does the Premier view the mandate of the health care sustainability unit as primarily to cut services that are non-core, seen as perhaps unnecessary or too fancy? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So given that currently we have nobody on the waiting list in Fort Smith and initially the estimated demand from the previous studies had been that there would be a demand of 33 people by now, it seems that that's pretty far off, and given that we're already moving forward more quickly with the long-term care facility in Hay River, where there's only six people on the waiting list and the plan is to build a 24-bed facility, is it feasible to think that perhaps people in Smith might be able to access a long-term care facility in in Hay River if there was -- if we were sort...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So just following up on my colleague from Frame Lake's questions about the long-term care facilities.

Well, my first question is if we are expecting in 2025 to do an update on bed projections, why would we move forward with planning for, in particular, the long-term care facility being proposed in Fort Smith and Fort Simpson instead of waiting for the updated bed projections? Because the planning would proceed for a specific size of facility. It says the planning is for -- in Fort Smith, a 24-bed facility, and yet we see now that there's actually nobody on the waiting list...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. So while the government's strategies around early learning have focused in recent years on the establishment of junior kindergarten and child care programs, what has the department been doing to support literacy and language skills for children zero to five through supports to parents and families? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I mean, I know that I'll just be continuing to learn about the capital planning process and, you know, certainly my concern is that we ensure that we are able to address all of the most severe most urgent life safety issues and we don't have projects competing with each other that are all at that level, and that we also have enough money to ensure that we're taking care of our assets and preventing sort of disasters or breakdowns or life safety issues down the road. So I'll just continue to have this on my mind but keep learning about the process. Thank you.