Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I already said I can't, because we are making some changes as per our discussion with committee and I would hate to throw out a number. Given that we are just doing some final adjustments right now, it might be different tomorrow, so I am not prepared to do that at this time. Yes, I am not prepared to do that at this time.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member's point is certainly noted. We have made significant investments in this, in this Assembly, that will support families and will support individuals who are struggling, and that is across many departments. There are also other pots that people can be referred to. The federal government provides wellness funding that goes directly to communities. Many of the communities are trying to run initiatives that will focus on poverty. ITI is working on supporting more community gardens for food security. There are multiple things happening. There is no one department...

My apologies, Mr. Chair. Phase one was 2018-2019. Phase two is 2019-2020, so it appears in this budget. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. About $7.2 million plus a little bit is for amortization, and then $114,000 is incremental O and M, and about $11.5 million is for monthly service payments for Stanton Hospital. Then there are positions in there, as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The child and youth counsellor program that we are rolling out isn't a pilot. I mean, we have done a significant amount of research. We have heard from youth across this territory in what they wanted to see, and we have actually started rolling the program out. It is a four-year rollout. We rolled out the Tlicho and the Deh Cho last fiscal year, or rather the current fiscal year, and there was new one position added in Fort Providence, by way of example. There were other positions in the Deh Cho, as well. Almost all the positions are filled. I think we are still running...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's based on a threshold, an income threshold, and we're looking to increase that threshold. We're also looking at having different tiers for a threshold for families as opposed to a threshold for individuals. Some individuals will still have to pay the co-payment, but with the threshold changes we're looking to minimize the number of individuals who may have to pay a co-pay who don't have insurance to help them.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We allocated the entire $1 million in the 2018-2019 fiscal year, but I don't think it is a surprise. There were certainly significantly more applications than funds available. I think it was $4 million that was requested. That is up double from the previous year.

The previous year, we started with a budget of $500,000. Through the O and M process that we are going through today, it was increased to $1 million. We had $2 million in asks that time, and we spent the entire $1 million. This time, $1 million was known, $4 million in applications, $1 million approved. Thank you...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In the therapeutic services area, there have been some increases over the years. We've been doing a multi-year roll-out in this particular area. In phase one, we rolled out a speech-language pathologist and an occupational therapist and an audiologist in Inuvik, as well as one admin person to help with those services in Inuvik. Just as a note, I'd like to recognize that all of those positions are filled. I think the speech-language pathologist will be starting on March 3rd. Phase two is to roll out another speech-language pathologist in Yellowknife, an assistant in...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to introduce my witnesses. On my left is Bruce Cooper, who is the deputy minister of Health and Social Services, and on my right is Jeannie Mathison, who is the director of finance. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. One of the challenges with the budget that you see in front of you, as I said earlier when I was talking about the expansion of Stanton services and the money that is needed to do that, is a lot of the money for an initiative, call it early childhood and development, is spread throughout the budget in many, many different areas. If we were to look at this page, we would say, "Oh, there is X amount of dollars" and that sounds like that is it, but really, there is more. I think, if we actually were to quantify the types of money that we are spending on early childhood...