Sandy Lee

I need to have my deputy minister give the information, as it’s operational.

Thank you. We are in communication with the graduating class of nurses at Aurora College. They are made aware that they wouldn’t be applying for jobs on the website, that they will be eligible to join the Graduate Employment Program process, that we will have a list of jobs available for them. HR and HSSA, Department of Health staff, are going in there to talk to the nursing graduates and we will be working with them to find placements for them. They will be asked to give their preference of what communities they would like to practice in. We want to match those, but those are not always...

Thank you. I just want to thank the Member for the comment. Yes, this is an ongoing challenge that we need to work on, but I just want to add to our discussions here some of the things that people involved with the Family Violence Coalition, Lydia Bardak was on the radio this morning speaking about… We rely on NGOs to help us with this. I think the government has undertaken a number of initiatives to combat family violence at different levels, whether it be through the courts or enhancing shelter money, working with children who witness violence, there’s an initiative to work with men who...

Mr. Speaker, I don’t think there is any disagreement between the Member and myself that there are more demands than resources available. I am thinking that the Member is thinking that I should just go and build some more or something like that.

The way the programs are being delivered, we have lots of providers. We have NGOs who have group homes. We don’t build housing. It is really about resources. It is not about lack of policy or programs or intent. We have more demands and supply and on a case-by-case basis, we work on our residents and we assess them. We place them where we can and we try...

As I stated, there is no substantial increase to anything in our budget because it’s, as people have called it, a status quo maintenance kind of budget under our fiscal circumstance.

With respect to suicide prevention work, we are doing some new work under this initiative. We have obtained some funding with the Mental Health Commission, which is a body set up nationally, and we’ve been getting some money for the last couple of years. This year we will be flowing $460,000 in federal funding for community-based suicide prevention projects. One of the initiatives that we are embarking on is to set...

I don’t see why we cannot contemplate that, and if that’s what the Member would like to see, then it’s something that we, as the government and the Legislature, especially in transition could consider. I would caution, though, that I don’t believe there is any evidence that says that if you had one authority, that would be the silver bullet fixer to managing finances. Alberta is a recent example of that. They blew up the boards, they tried to find efficiencies, and I don’t think there is any evidence to show that they are in any way saving their money.

We have a governance review that we are...

Mr. Speaker, absolutely. I am always happy to go before the committee and have discussions with them. Thank you.

Mr. Elkin, please.

Yes, that’s exactly right. On page 8-21.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member is aware and as the Premier replied earlier this morning, since that statement that the Member read out, there had been a workshop and there was very comprehensive representation from all sectors of our society and all departments across the government. It involves Justice, Education, income security, Health and Social Services and Housing. Anti-Poverty Strategy, the scope of the work has expanded considerably and it goes across the government. Because of that, the Executive, and with the entire Cabinet, has taken on the work of responding to that.

Mr...