Julian Morse

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I have some questions -- or a question about the Aurora College student housing unit in Fort Smith. There's renovation of a couple units there. So my question is not so much about that project but, you know, the capital plan indicates repairs for those but there's no funds for other Aurora College capital needs proposed this year. So what are the timelines, priority levels and expected funding for other critical areas or need across the Aurora College campuses? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for those answers, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, how will the NWT Medical Association, the nurses’ union, other organizations like that be engaged and have input into the decisions being made by the health care sustainability unit?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I just spoke about the health sustainability unit, and I think probably my questions are best directed towards the Premier on this one.

Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, can the Premier just reassure the public and reassure people watching that, you know, the sustainability unit is going to be looking at more than just service system cuts. If the Premier would like to share some more information about that on the record, it would be appreciated. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So yeah, I'm kind of curious in particular on -- to get a bit deeper into kind of O and M costs. So any of the projects will do, really. I mean, any of them have implications for that. So how do we propose affording to operate additional infrastructure like this? I mean, looking at our fiscal outlook, looking at the infrastructure we've got, it seems like we're having a very difficult time kind of affording what we've already got. So who are we envisioning is going to pay for the operations? Are we anticipating developing cost sharing agreements with other governments...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's it for questions for me on this item for now.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Certainly, I appreciate that answer. I would appreciate some more detail on how discussions are going with the federal government. And, you know, if the Minister can kind of speak to expected capital items coming forward in the next couple of years that this Assembly will likely be looking at for Aurora College capital needs, I'd appreciate that discussion. Thank you. So I'll frame that as a question, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that they've set up an email address. I think what I'd appreciate is kind of a reassurance that there's going to be fundamental inclusion in the decision-making by practitioners, by frontline staff. I noted the gap in my Member's statement of this happening in the health care system. It's not happening enough, this fundamental inclusion. So how is the health care system sustainability unit going to be including practitioner input into their decision-making beyond just an email address but maybe having physicians, nurses, representatives at the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, how will the system sustainability unit be using information like the 2020 Physician Workforce Plan, workforce planning in general, the letter from the NWTMA; how will they be using these documents to inform their work? There's been a lot of work done on system sustainability already by practitioners. How is the unit going to be taking advantage of this work that's already been done? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, last night the Premier and health Minister presented to the Standing Committee on Social Development on their new health system sustainability unit. I want to be clear that I commend the Premier for taking this action and support this initiative.

Mr. Speaker, I also wanted to get some comments on the record about this initiative. I heard staff saying they're not just looking at reducing service but repeatedly referring back to the core services inventory, so it really seemed to me like services are currently the focus and appreciated the Premier's...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And so, you know, I appreciate that answer from the Minister. I'm very glad that they are considering the O and M for these. You know, that does bring me some comfort.

So I want to speak a little bit -- I mean, we heard from the ECE Minister just today detail the magnitude of costs for infrastructure for the college, for example. And of course, there's only so much federal money we can seek. The same can be said for housing, which MLAs have been clear is a priority. And so one of the problems we have is we can only seek so much federal funding. We can only...