Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to use my statement today to address the issue of how the government is dealing with the recruitment, retention and hiring of nurses. I heard from a variety of sources that this government is paying substantial amounts of money to fly nurses in from southern Canada. If these nurses are needed and required, then I don’t have difficulty in accepting that this is a practice that we should condone. However, there are a couple of issues with this that I want some clarity on. I want to know why new nurses moving to Yellowknife have to send in resumes three and four times and don’t even get a phone call back from anyone to acknowledge that they have received it. There is absolutely no follow-up. Meanwhile, nurses continue to be flown in from the South with a huge price tag. Another item is that if you go out to Stanton, you can see all the numerous jobs posted on bulletin boards, but where else are these jobs posted? Most of them don’t even appear on the GNWT web site.

All I can say is, Mr. Speaker, that I believe that this is another indication that we are standing by and allowing the centralization of human resources to cost this government money. I want to state again for the record that I feel that it continues to be in the best interest of our government to follow through with the development of a department of human resources. However -- and, Mr. Speaker, it is a big however -- how long do we have to see and hear evidence from our constituents, employees and residents that there are substantial issues at human resources? I plan on addressing each of them during this budget session. This is the first one and it won’t be the last time that you will hear me speak about concerns that I have with the soon-to-be new Department of Human Resources.

Mr. Speaker, specific to my concerns over the recruitment and retention of nurses, I will have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services at the appropriate time. Thank you.

---Applause