Kate Reid

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table a letter dated January 29th, 2026, from YWCA-NWT to Cabinet Members requesting funds to operate safe homes in Fort Simpson and Fort Good Hope. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, I am heartened to hear that this past weekend an artist reached out to me and said, you know, the new financial structure is working, it's clearer, it's understandable. But I am curious, Mr. Speaker, what more has her department been hearing about arts funding, and has this new structure been working for the majority of NWT artists? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I may be asking the Minister to talk about future planning, and maybe it's not fully addressed yet, but can the Minister explain if she has any steps should mitigation be required and how she will go about hiring contractors or if the LHOs will be the ones who take care of mitigation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, yeah, I recognize going down the road of trying to capture all fertility interventions as insured services is not one that the health Minister is willing to do at this juncture. So I guess I am just asking her to be bold and in her process can she identify the potential costs for providing medical travel for a non-insured service and if that is, indeed, something that she will be looking at. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I hope I am being slow enough. I will try.

I think my last question, as my time is running out is -- and I want to thank the Minister for that answer, and I want to thank her and her staff for identifying that indeed there is oversight needed on medical travel, and I think this initiative is a good idea.

Can the Minister please tell me if these new positions, and indeed this work of this initiative, will more fully dovetail with the medical travel approach of the -- for GNWT employees. There seems to be some disparate pieces between the two and how they're handled. I think...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of health.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister has previously replied to a written question that the health services administration office will address patient files through a process called prior approval when the patient's cause of infertility is not readily known. This seems like a good touch point to capture voluntary data from residents who are struggling to conceive. So my question is can the Minister investigate that touch point, and any others that may make sense to her and her department, as a place to start collecting...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I don't know how to restate it, but I am curious if there are any retention measures that are also being considered by NTHSSA for this new 24/7 model. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll try and be brief. I am very excited about the 24/7 model of the laboratory and diagnostic imaging services for Stanton that has been announced in this budget. It appears that 21 new positions will be established to support that model.

Can the Minister elaborate as to how that model will run and whether or not positions will be difficult to recruit and retain? I know that having such a service is very important to many of my constituents, and I know they would want to see it succeed. We have difficulty with retention sometimes in health care, so I'd love to hear the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And that's where the tricky bit of NTHSSA and finance. Human resources and HR, human resources, always overlaps and I am always uncertain where the line is. So thank you to the Minister for that.

Can the Minister speak to some of the initiatives that are being considered to -- if there are any new initiatives being considered to increase the number of NWT residents working in health care? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I know part of the scoping of this project, too, is interoperability with the Alberta system. Has that pre-feasibility work been completed now that we're almost at the RFP stage? Is it realistic to assume that we will have interoperability with Alberta or other jurisdictions? Thank you, Mr. Chair.