R.J. Simpson

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to go back to the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority. You said since 2005 it’s been costing about a million a year, some years a million and a half to top up the pension fund? We’re looking at already about $11 million. I understand to bring them into the single authority 15 years ago would have cost maybe a couple million. Now, I have heard estimates, $20 million, $30 million. Does the department have a plan to actually bring the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority under the single umbrella and when do they foresee that happening and...

Does committee agree?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know I’ve brought this up a couple of times, and it’s because people in town bring it up to me; they want their children to get these jobs and stay in the North and be encouraged to come back to the North. It’s something that I’ll be bringing up again and I’ll be looking forward to working with I guess the Ministers of all the departments, since they’re responsible for the hiring, to try and up those numbers in Hay River. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Minister’s been doing a great job of keeping us updated, weekly updates as to how many summer students have been hired, where they’ve been hired. I know that there was an article on CBC the other day that said his department does encourage other departments to hire summer students, and they try to encourage departments to exceed last year’s hiring. I was wondering with these stats and with this encouragement that they give, do they do anything with those statistics? Do they look at areas there there’s deficiencies in places like Hay River where we have a low percentage of hires? Do they...

In addition to attending the opening, the Ministers who attended made a point of touring other facilities in Hay River and I want to thank them for showing interest in that as well. It was great to hear from Mr. Nadli and Chief Fabien. They spoke about their regions and their communities’ ties to Hay River. It was a great reminder that even though we’re spread far and wide in this territory, we’re all neighbours. As Chief Fabien said, “We’re all relatives sharing this land. “It was also great to hear that there has already been three babies born in the new health centre. We’ve entered into a...

Thank you. I will leave that regional issue alone. I guess it’s kind of a territorial issue when you’re talking about tens of millions of dollars. I just wanted to discuss the Human Tissue Donation Act. I think this would be the section. It was passed in the last Assembly. It came into force last June, I believe, and the latest information I found on it says that we have to wait until the organ donation registry is set up before people can register. I was wondering how far along that process is, if that’s going to happen in this budget year. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. When do you expect those negotiations to happen? When do you expect to actually get an exact cost? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We’ll take a short break and resume with a discussion with Health and Social Services.

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I’ll now call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of the committee? Mr. Testart.

I’m sorry for misspeaking; I guess it was the Premier who gave that encouragement. The numbers I quoted do include the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority. The Minister was saying that the departments tell them what skills they need and they try to have some meaningful work these summer students. Does the department do any work with the other departments to help create meaningful work, to develop some sort of plan so that say, the Department of Transportation, can create a meaningful position to hire a summer student?