Frieda Martselos

Mr. Speaker, your Standing Committee on Government Operations is pleased to provide its report on Bill 61, An Act to Amend the Ombud Act, and commends it to the House.

Bill 61, An Act to Amend the Ombud Act, (Bill 61) received second reading on November 2, 2022 and was referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations for review.

Bill 61 is a private Member’s bill, sponsored by the Member for Yellowknife North, to amend the Ombud Act. Many of the proposed changes derive from recommendations in the Ombud’s 20192020 Annual Report and in committee’s review of that annual report...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd also like to recognize Dennis Patterson who I also know from the 1970s and consider a friend. Dennis. And I'd also like to recognize Glenna Simon, the new patient advocate for the Fort Smith Health Centre. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

So the policy of the NWT Housing Corporation is that you make people homeless, you forget about them, and hopefully that nobody complains? And, you know, these are people that would never get through the front door. And it's really makes me want to understand how people think overall and who makes the policy and how it is implemented and why are people that are disenfranchised, have addiction problems, are poor, and we throw them out of their unit just before Christmas?

They're now couch surfing, they're homeless, and where do they go? You know, it's a really unusual situation, and I'm sure it...

Of the 2900 units, there's only 56 applicants, and most of them will be subject to a means test and all these other things and so that's not a very good rate of success. But, you know, I looked at that whole renewal initiative. It sounds great. But there's one important part that is missing from that renewal program, and that's the Seniors Aging with Dignity program. You know, we talk about this in the House. We talk about our seniors all the time. And that hasn't been addressed in the renewal initiative. And I'm going to be doing a statement on that tomorrow. But I just want to make sure that...

I just want to make sure that I don't lose time waiting for them to find the answer.

I also would like to know about the homeownership program. How many homeownership programs have gone to individuals in the entire NWT is my second question, Madam Chair.

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell us if the Union of Northern Workers considers the parameters of these recruitment and retention bonuses to be fair for their NTHSSA members? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell us if she considers the recruitment and retention bonuses to be fairly distributed among healthcare staff? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, on October the 5th, 2022, the Government of the Northwest Territories and Union of Northern Workers signed an MOU providing a onetime labour market supplement in the form of a recruitment and retention bonus depending on eligibility requirements. According to the MOU, the labour market supplement will be applied as retention bonuses for some registered nurses, nurse practitioners, midwives, licensed practical nurses, and medical laboratory technologists. Eligible employees will receive between $5,000 and $7,000 depending on the NWT community they live in...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to question the Minister on the allocation of staff. You know, we have 107 positions and we have North Slave and Yellowknife that are in Yellowknife. So we have 65 staff. It's really misleading how the numbers come out because if you go to the table of active positions summary, so 65 staff are for the headquarters in North Slave and you know, when we're doing these, the mains, we should make sure that we make that very clear and we don't put them in with the regional offices. So you have 41 staff for the rest of the territories and there's 33 communities...

Madam Chair, when you do a business deal like this, you always look for profit. And we are no different, okay. The Government of the Northwest Territories settles for something that is less business oriented and goes with what the federal government and those specs for those houses were over the top. It's almost like building a you know, something that's going to happen within a war zone or something. That's how bad the specs were. There was no collaboration with the Government of the Northwest Territories on the specs, and the prices went up. I'm not blaming anybody that had to build them...