Rylund Johnson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am glad to hear that this is something that the Minister is looking into. I think that one of the concerns that I have in this area is that the resources seem to be in a lot of different places. I know that Legal Aid does good work, and I know that the court workers do good work. The law resource centre could use a little work. There seems to be a lot of resources in different places. I think the solution here is really bringing them together into some sort of arm's-length law centre, a place that could take on articling students. I know there is talk in this...

I was really hoping that we could free the books there. I think there is a larger question here about, since the cut was made to the law library, whether there are any plans in this area. That would begin with reinstating a law librarian position. Does the department have any plans to reinstate a law librarian?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thought I moved to Hay River for a minute. Mr. Speaker, I love libraries. Libraries are community hubs. They are one of the last true public third spaces. They are keepers of knowledge for generations. I also love the law. I love the work we do in this House. I love the complex work society does of putting all of our norms into the written word. It should come as no surprise that I love law libraries, and one day, I wish to live in a place with a law library. In fact, if I lived in any other province or territory in Canada, I would be able to access a law library...

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that, on Wednesday, March 31, 2021, I will move the following motion: I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Hay River North, that, notwithstanding Rule 4, when this House adjourns on Wednesday, March 31, 2021, it shall be adjourned until Thursday, May 27, 2021. And further, that any time prior to May 27, 2021, if the Speaker is satisfied, after consultation with the Executive Council and Members of the Legislative Assembly, that the public interest requires that the House should meet at an earlier time during the adjournment or at a time later than the...

I recognize that is probably a suite of these questions I can also ask to the corresponding Minister for the Department of Finance. In the Department of Health and Social Services business plan, this year, we were supposed to have completed new recruitment and retention strategies to guide that work. Has that work been completed? I heard the Minister say the potential of exit surveys. What I am really looking for is a comprehensive strategy I can sit down and nurses can review to see where we are going. Has that work for new recruitment and retention strategies been completed yet?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Minister stated, new hospitals and machines only work if we have the people, and the people are healthcare workers that we rely on. I know we have faced a number of retention issues; they're nothing new to the North. My question for the Minister of Health and Social Services is: what is the number one reason that nurses are leaving the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm glad to hear that work, and I know that some of the specialization work and the training to get people into nursing is some of the best work we're doing in this area. My concern is also specifically on the retention. I know there is new recruitment unit going out, and I know we are offering signing bonuses. We're attracting locums, and we're getting more people to come here. Previously, in a number of different formats, the department has offered retention benefits. These were service agreements. If you worked one year, you get a bonus at the conclusion of that year...

That gets to my next question. If we're not tracking why our nurses are leaving, whether that be due to burnout, not getting paid enough, workplace culture, lack of housing, there can be a long list of reasons why a nurse does not leave. I note that the NWTA for teachers tracks this information diligently and in response to each of those concerns when a teacher decides to go down south. Is this part of the work the Department of Health and Social Services is doing in this area, is to track with exit interviews the reasons nurses leave the Northwest Territories?

Mr. Speaker, nurses are the backbone of our healthcare system, and across Canada, we face a nursing shortage. The market is highly competitive to attract and retain nurses. We in the North have long struggled to fulfill all of our nursing positions. This last year has shown just how important our healthcare workers are. Our pandemic response was informed by our ability to manage the threat, and we took no chances, Mr. Speaker. However, we need to take that bold spirit to attracting and retaining our nurses.

I have had many exhausted nurses reach out to me over the course of this pandemic...

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is $150,000 to support the Mackenzie Valley liquefied natural gas project. I believe the Department of ITI also has a corresponding territory-wide LNG feasibility study going on. It's a little hard to want to remove this when it's fully paid for by the federal government, so I'm happy to see that. My main concern here is that the IRC is actually quite a ways ahead of us, I believe, in some of their projects and their feasibility assessments, and in fact, they are actually doing some work. I'm just trying to get a sense of why or how the GNWT's feasibility...