Julian Morse

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, first, kind of a preliminary question. What is our current total number of occupied long-term care beds in Hay River, Fort Simpson, and Fort Smith, and what is the current waitlist in each of those communities? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to follow up a little bit further on the questions I asked earlier. I was wondering if the Minister of ECC would commit to a year for getting this process done, so having target the amendments to the waters regs by the October session of 2025. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, is the Minister able to give us any kind of a timeline? I think the idea with the recommendation from all these different entities for targeted amendments is that we get them done quickly, that this could be a quick win for the department and a quick win for regulatory fairness and certainty in the territory. So can the Minister give us a timeline for when they expect the targeted amendments to be concluded? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Member for Great Slave, that Committee Report 20-20(1), Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on Committee's Initiation of the 10-year Review of the Northwest Territories Heritage Fund Act, be received and adopted by the Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Your Standing Committee on Government Operations is pleased to provide its Report on Committee's Initiation of the 10-Year Review of the Northwest Territories Heritage Fund Act.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Member for Great Slave, that Committee Report 20-20(1), Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on Committee's Initiation of the 10-year Review of the Northwest Territories Heritage Fund Act, be deemed read and printed in Hansard in its entirety. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this is a more general question just about long-term care in general but is -- are any of the long-term care facilities that are either planned or already built going to be able to provide a standard of care which would allow repatriation of out of territory long-term care patients? Because I know that's something that we spend -- I looked back through the mains and, you know, we are spending $45 million a year on out of territory long-term care. And so by building these long-term care facilities, is there a possibility for -- what I'm really asking here is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the Member for Great Slave, that Committee Report 19-20(1), Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Report on the Statutory Review of the Cannabis Legalization and Regulation Implementation Act, be received and adopted by the Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. I appreciate that answer, and the modular construction certainly sounds like a good way to go ahead. So just to confirm, though, let's say the bed projections in 2025 come back and say demand is not going to be as high as what was originally projected, are you going to be able to scale construction down to reflect that so that we have right-sized facilities?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in July 2024 the GNWT released the 2023 Employee Engagement and Satisfaction Report and attached an employee satisfaction action plan to that report. I do note, with some disappointment, that favourability scores were noted to decline across all indices relative to the 2021 survey. A couple of items I'd like to highlight, Mr. Speaker:

Only 58 percent of staff felt that innovation was valued in their work.

Only 52 percent said they felt valued as employees or that commitment to quality was a high priority.

Overall, morale lowered by 4.9 percent since the last...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So in particular -- well, maybe I'll get into specifics on this one. So I note that there -- can the Minister give us an update as to where they're at with construction of the Hay River facility.