Glen Abernethy

I'm glad the Member had an opportunity to attend one of the healthy living fairs; and I hope the Member had an opportunity to stroll through the giant colon and see the impacts of colon health and cancer.

For the rest of the Northwest Territories, it's certainly an interesting adventure. The health living fairs are an incredibly important tool. I think it's great that they're getting out to residents of the Northwest Territories, and I'm thrilled, absolutely thrilled, to hear that the event was packed. I think as MLAs, as Ministers, we all need to encourage our residents to go to these fairs...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, recognizing that we do take the concerns raised by the Privacy Commissioner very seriously, we continue to move forward on those recommendations. The report was based on a previous fiscal year. Some things have changed since then and before she made her report. We do take her concerns very seriously.

In the past four months, we have hired a new chief health privacy officer, and they have been engaged in discussions across the government and in clinical settings. Coming out of these meetings and discussions, suggestion on how to improve some of the processes and...

Yes. Thank you. Yes, the Member is correct. This is the right area; it is under population health. Just going back to the other question, yes, I have met the Member from Deh Cho. He is a pretty reasonable person. I am sure he won't mind me sharing a little bit of information with you, but I will also share some information with him. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, this is the area where population health is located.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I haven't had anybody discuss that with me. It is not a discussion we have had. There are a number of essential services that are delivered by third parties. Avens is a prime example. There is a lot of value in engaging communities and people who live in the smaller communities who aren't necessarily associated with government, which sometimes makes people nervous. Independents can be valuable. At this time, no, there has been no plan to bring them into the public service. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, as I said, originally, it was two positions in the Beaufort Delta; one was an insured services coordinator, and the other was an administration assistant. Since printing this document, we have changed our minds, and I apologize to the Members for the late notice on that. The bottom line is, the insured service coordinator position remains full. We anticipated that the demand was going to decrease there a little bit because we had a significant number of positions, but they're fully busy up there. We had to reevaluate. When it comes to the information assistant...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we're still tracking towards that date; that's our hope and our expectation. I accept that weirder things have happened. If we have any difficulties or any challenges that we are not going to hit our targets, I will certainly let committee know.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Technical conversation, but it is considered forgone rent for the period of time from April 1st to the end of May in anticipation of the report coming back from Infrastructure, and then working on a way forward. Thank you.

Obviously, I'd love to take credit for that work, but it was really work that was led by the communities. It was incredibly valuable. I think the people of the Sahtu really need a pat on the back for the incredible work they've done to create this glossary and get it out to residents of the region. The department did play a role; we did provide some support in the form of some human resources and some other supports. It was a great tool. The department is absolutely open to working with other regions, other language groups, to create similar documents, recognizing that, really, it needs to be...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I appreciate the Member's opinion, but he is actually incorrect. The resources we have and the systems that we have can do many of the things that the Privacy Commissioner has done. We just have to basically get it incorporated into the system. Some of these will take a bit of time, and we are committed to getting that done. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The funding for these positions is base, so it's part of a core funding. The positions have been created, but yes, authorities, as all employers in the GNWT do, have some freedom to choose whether they want to attempt to fill the positions on term or indeterminate. They will do an assessment of the region community, try to get a sense of who might be available, and go out that mechanism. These are full-time indeterminate positions. They are not going anywhere. How to staff them, the authority does have some freedom of choice based on what they know about the region and...