Glen Abernethy

In the life of this 16th Assembly there has been an awful lot of conversation about the debt and deficits of both those institutions and there has been reference to plans and action items and things we are going to do to reduce those debts, but they keep growing. I know the department is doing a lot of things. I know Stanton and Beaufort-Delta are trying things. I know there has been some changes in the Beaufort-Delta and now it is under the control, I guess, of a public administrator, but what kind of things, what kind of large activities are we doing out of Foundation for Change or any of...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to go back to the question I was asking earlier in the questions that Mr. Ramsay had been following up on. When I was talking earlier, I was talking about getting statistics on specifics and different things and not just agency nurse statistics but also our locum pool. I just want to confirm a couple of things so that we can make sure we get the right information when you are coming back to us with the locum pool. Does the Government of the Northwest Territories still maintain a pool, a locum pool of nurses that we use in our authorities but also in our...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is probably one of the largest expenditure sections in the Department of Health and Social Services at $188 million-plus. There has been a lot of talk in the last couple of years about deficits and increased debt at some of our authorities, in particular Stanton and Beaufort-Delta. Could the Minister tell me what the projected debt and deficits are for both those authorities for the 2010-2011 fiscal year, and how that affects us coming into the 2011-2012 fiscal year and the amount that is going to be transferred to them?

Thank you, Minister Lee. Mr. Ramsay, your time is up. I can put you back on the list if you want, but for now I will go to the next Member on the list, which is Mr. Bromley.

Thanks to the Minister for that. We obviously share the same desire to get these particular systems up and running, but as the Minister you have a unique seat at a table in this government where you can really put pressure on your colleagues, the Ministers, to put some greater attention to expanding bandwidth up the valley into our communities so that we can really utilize these technologies that exist. There are so many advantages here to help us reduce medical travel costs, to increase services to the communities, to overall, you know, I mean, if we’re talking Foundation for Change -- and...

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Ms. Meade.

So just for clarity, I heard that none of the bursaries have been eliminated but they may not be utilized particularly due to budget reasons. If the deputy minister could confirm that.

The other thing that I’m curious about or, rather, I would like the department to provide, is: I’d like the department to provide a list or summary over the last or probably since the duration of the bursaries -- they haven’t been around that long -- showing how much we’ve paid out, how much return of service was owed to the GNWT in all categories: nurses, social workers, physicians. How much return of services...

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Ms. Meade.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I see this is the division that has health human resources. Could the Minister please tell me how much of the $34.32 million is allocated to the health human resources division?

Thank you, Minister Lee. Next on my list is Mr. Bromley.