Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, to you and through you I'd like to recognize a resident of the Great Slave riding as well as a delegate of the Daughters of the Vote initiative. Ms. Nha Ly, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, it is not a reduction that is anything other than a reduction due to shared procurement, an opportunity to buy bulk instead of individually at one authority level like we used to. There has been some decreased demand on some of the different types of chemo drugs that are out there. This is purely a reduction based on consolidated purchasing and some demand. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the agreements haven't been signed. They're not recognized in this budget. Once they've been signed and we actually know what's going to be allocated on a fiscal year basis we'll be able to update probably by way of a supp in the future. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We're open to discussing anything, but I'm not sure exactly what the Member is referring to. Is the Member referring to, like, a safe house or is the Member referring to a family violence shelter? I mean, there are so many possibilities here. In the region, we have a shelter in the community of Inuvik that is available to the region. So it really depends on the nature and scope to which the community is referring.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I believe it was in the last government that this particular standing offer agreement was established. It is reviewed every couple of years. I do believe the discussion around whether or not we go for standing offer agreements in the future is coming up. It might be six months. It might be a year. I can't remember the exact date, but I know that it does have a finite time limit.

I will confirm what the duration of this particular standing offer agreement is. I hear the Member's concern, but I could also argue that it might go the exact opposite. They have got a captive...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Most of the samples and whatnot are actually going from the Deh Cho to Yellowknife. Some of them may have to be referred south depending on the nature of the sample taken and time that the sample is viable, if you will. For the most part, many samples can be taken in the Fort Simpson Health Centre or other health centres and shipped to Yellowknife. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. These are accumulating totals of the previous pages; everywhere where it says basically transfer to authority, this is just the accumulated total. The Member is right; that's true. Some regions, like the Sahtu as an example, have a number of positions being added to cover the long-term care. Hay River has one position for their facility as well, so there is some growth in some regions of the Territorial Health Authority compared to others.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the Member's vision is where we want to be. We want to be able to meet the needs of small communities, recognizing that, you know, certain communities fall under regional operations, but as a single authority we should be able to have individuals from Hay River come to Kakisa if the people from Providence aren't available. Once we're on a single information system, they won't have to and those sort of things. There are lots of opportunities.

Are we all the way there? No. No, we're not. Do we have the tools in place that will allow us to get there? Yes, and every...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I am pretty sure I have said a couple of times that we need to really get a definition here in the Northwest Territories. I would like to add that I had the opportunity to attend the federalprovincialterritorial meeting of the Ministers of Social Services last week with Minister Duclos and some of his representatives. He was not able to stay the whole meeting. We were there to talk about the national antipoverty work that is being done, and one of the discussions is there has to be a definition in order to evaluate whether or not we're making ground or not...

I don’t even know where to go now. There are so many questions. I'll stop. I've addressed, I think, the three big ones. I know I'll be asked more questions on those, but just in closing before we go to line by line, there's no question that Cabinet agrees with committee. There's zero. These are mandate items. We're 100 per cent in, we're going to move forward with this work, we're going to work with committee, we're going to get it done, and we'll be able to have informed discussions about how to set our financial priorities in the best interests of the people, but without that work being done...