Julie Green

Thanks for that detail. Yes, I am aware that there is a plan to increase that, but I am not sure about the timing. I will turn to the deputy minister for that detail, please.

Yes. Thank you. Based on the budget for this fiscal year, which had a deficit budget, the NTHSSA had a deficit projected for this fiscal year, then I am going to say that we are going to continue to grow the deficit for the time being. What we are trying to do is to reduce the size of that deficit to zero through the health system sustainability plan, which we have spoken about here, so what we are trying to do is understand the drivers that are adding to the deficit and address those and reduce them, obviously, so we get to a point where we are not budgeting with deficits for the health...

I am always available to the Member for Nunakput. Thank you.

I don't think this does include the FASD diagnostic clinic, but I will turn to Ms. Mathison to confirm that.

I'll take that as a comment. Thank you.

Thank you. Just to say, again, this is a very high-level budget, so it does not have Fort Smith-specific information in it. What I want to say is that the budget for the current fiscal year was subject to a supplementary appropriation for $21.4 million that had to do with the dialysis unit expansion in Hay River; mental health and addictions funding; safe restart funding; Child and Family Services, this was hiring some additional staff in that area; also, the child and youth care counsellor. Those are very general numbers. I do not know if Ms. Mathison can offer anything more specific, but...

Helping communities and residents is what I'm here for. I hear the Member when he says not everybody has the tools to access Facebook, telephone numbers, and so on. There are some accommodations available through the health centre with respect to using the phone, as I understand it. Where communities don't have resident counsellors, there is a travelling team that comes in from time to time with assistance and sees people over a more intense period. I don't know if they would consider sending those teams to Nunakput. I am not sure how well-staffed the resources are there, but that's something...

What my notes say here is that, in the 2019-2020 budget, the budget was not fully spent, mostly because of some federal funding that lapsed. Then in the 2020-2021 budget, we had funding from Health Canada related to cannabis, which has now sunset. There are some other details about what goes on here in public health, and part of that was covered with a supplementary appropriation that was passed during this fiscal year and included things such as $70,000 for meat inspection regulations; $94,000 for enhanced community-based monitoring of seasonal influenza; $40,000 from the Northern Wellness...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't believe that this is the right area. I think that this doesn't represent the entire grant to the health authorities, but I'll ask Ms. Mathison if she can tell us more particularly what portion of their budget this figure represents. Thank you.

Thank you. What I see here is that this budget has some fluctuation in it. In the current fiscal year, it bumped up because of COVID restart money. That's why it's at $79,841,000 for this year. We're not anticipating, or at least not budgeting, for the COVID money for the next fiscal year because that hasn't been firmed up yet. There is no reduction in services. This does not represent any loss of nursing positions or other services to community clinics and health centres. It's puzzling to me about why that budget is a little bit smaller than it was in the actuals, but also in the main...