Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, we will work with the Sahtu Health and Social Services Authority in the air conditioning area, but we have to look at the needs across the board; in fact, all of our health centres throughout the territory. As I stated earlier, the department has put the request in in trying to get more revenue so that we can deal with this area. Thank you.

Madam Chair, as stated, it’s money that was originally part of the original transfer, now back to Housing Corporation and deals with the two categories of assisted living for seniors and independent seniors caretaker units. For more of the detail, I believe Mr. Dent can provide it.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what we have done, as we go through our capital planning program, is we, through the small capital needs assessment, put our request in for money for health centres throughout the territory that don’t have this type of equipment. We try to make it through that avenue to have equipment installed as the money becomes available. That is the process we are using this year, as well. We have made requests through the small capital needs assessment area. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the initial work in transferring the program from the Housing Corporation over to the Department of Education, Culture and Employment looked at all of the different subsidies that were out there in the housing area and put within the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. After further review of the program, it was felt that a couple of areas would be better situated back within the Housing Corporation that fit with the existing program that they deliver in the area of assisted living for seniors. So you see this pile of the money going back....

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Dr. Andre Corriveau who’s with us in the gallery today. He’s the chief medical health officer and influential in the act coming up in this House later on, the Public Health Act. Thank you.

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, we will go back and look at some of the price changes and request information and then forward that on to Members. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess many in the Northwest Territories may term it or state that it’s a form of gouging, but the practice has been throughout industry that -- and I’ll use an example -- again, my community when the prices started going up, we know, for example, in communities that don’t have highway systems or barge, for example, Inuvik gets its fuel supply by barges and we know that that barge delivery happens in early summer and it’s put into storage facilities within Inuvik under one of the larger companies. It isn’t until that gas leaves that storage facility, is put into a...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, it is, as we stated, a concern and the issue of capacity is a big one. As we’re seeing potentially, we feel that as part of the impact on the competition side. Over the North overall is there capacity to do these projects in all of our communities in the time we have set out? If you look at the request for carry-overs plus the 2007-2008 budget we’ve just passed, the capital program we have sitting out there now is just under $250 million. That’s a significant amount of work that would be required in a year, so one of the exercises that we go through in the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in celebration of National Nurses Week from May 7th to 13th, I would like to acknowledge the tireless contributions made to the residents of the NWT by our nurses.

This year’s theme, Think You Know Nursing? Take a Closer Look, focuses on the expanded roles of nurses as leaders, innovators, pioneers, primary care providers, mentors, educators, researchers and administrators.

Mr. Speaker, the nursing shortage being experienced across Canada is also a reality here in the NWT. We are addressing this by training our own northern workforce through a four-year...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we’ve noticed that on a lot of our projects in the Northwest Territories and our larger capital projects, we are at times receiving one bidder on a tender package. That can be some of the larger ones. Even in the city of Yellowknife, which is our largest community, we may get two bidders on some of our larger projects. That affects the way we can look at things. If we’re going out for competition and finding there’s little competition and there’s one price, what do we do if it’s, for example, twice the amount that was established in the budget? So we’re...