Ronald Bonnetrouge

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My Member's statement today is regarding healthcare service in my community of Fort Providence and in the communities in my riding, which include Kakisa, K'atlodeeche, and Enterprise. This may also go for the other communities in the Northwest Territories, which may or may not have health centres. I believe the level of healthcare is concerning for the residents of the Northwest Territories. This issue most likely has been raised in every prior Assembly, with Members stating the problems with healthcare in our communities or lack thereof.

Everyone talks of fixing the...

Thank you. Just a final comment regarding the regulatory framework, that I hope they really keep the small communities in mind when you are setting your legislation and everything, because I know that government has a hard time thinking of the small people and how they can move forward, when they are thinking about locally produced and harvested foods. Mahsi.

My final question to the Minister: does the department conduct investigations into complaints made against health centre staff in terms of the treatment received by patients?

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My questions are directed towards the Health Minister. I am not certain that the health Minister is aware of ongoing problems with healthcare in the small communities. However, does the health Minister have any aspirations to fixing the healthcare system? Mahsi.

Mahsi, Madam Chair. One of the university question, Aurora College, all those create aspirations for the young at heart, young kids in the communities, some place they can go to in the North, some place close to home. I assume those are aspirations that they would have. I don't want to cut those aspirations off. It is probably inevitable that this will happen, but it may happen further down the road than we expect. There are factors that contribute to that. We heard from the Premier before that the federal government funds infrastructure, but they do not fund programming. With us being in a...

What you're stating there is to work with qualified tradespeople, but at the same time, too, you have to remember that, in our small communities, we don't have qualified tradespeople in the communities. I'm really wondering how that's going to work, or if it's even going to do any good for the small communities, unless you bring in a tradesperson from outside into that program.

I'm also looking at, you know, it's kind of ambitious and I'm really looking forward to this, the working group that is going to develop employment opportunities. Like, we're looking at fall of 2020, 30 new jobs. Is that...

Thank you for that. Also, "Develop mentorship programs"; can you elaborate on that point, also? Mahsi.

Is it possible to go back to page 15, "Increase employment in small communities"?

Thank you for that. It almost sounds like the employment in the small communities would hinge upon the Housing Corporation's LHOs. I know, right now, in my community, anyway, they're running two or three boiler systems in seniors' homes; you know, multiple boiler systems. Technically, you're required to have an operating engineer or OBM ticket, and we don't have that in our community. We haven't had that for the last four or five years, and we always have to rely on the outside communities. People are not comfortable with that.

We always saw employment opportunities, apprenticeship...

We're all hard of hearing.

---Laughter

I was asking about the mentorship program, and I'm kind of wondering what that entails. What are they talking about when they're saying "mentorship program"? What will it look like, and what positions? Mahsi.