Kieron Testart

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I do, and I shall.

Mr. Speaker, thank you very much to the Members who spoke in support of the bill. You know, I do want to reflect as Members -- the bill, the motion. The motion; it's not a bill. Thank you for the correction. Not a full Point of Order but technically important.

So this all started -- Members have alluded to this, but one of the first substantive motions that we debated in this chamber of this Assembly was for a public inquiry, and the reason it is related to the motion is this report emerged from that. So we wouldn't have this report without that...

Thank you. And how long is the intended work going to take? Is this a larger multi-year project or something that's just going to occur in the next fiscal year? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In terms of a complaint that I received, the patient actually pushed back and said please book it all at once so I don't have to do four trips. They didn't want this. So will the Minister commit today to end this waste that's going on in the system and ensure that we streamline appointments so they're all happening at the same time; will she commit to fix that in the medical travel policy today? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the health care sustainability unit has determined that we pay just about double for health care in the Northwest Territories. Health care funding is a quarter of our budget and the deficit is expected to be $350 million, which is consistent with deficits that have been climbing over the years. That's why we have the unit. The question is, what is the public administrator doing to curb this deficit, to bring sustainability to the unit. We know how much it costs now. What is he doing to bring those costs down? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, that seems to be a change in plan. So I must be mistaken in that this was going to be abandoned and they were going to move to a more sustainable model of staffing. So what is the plan for -- not for doctors but for nurses and the allied medical professionals who work in the ERs? Because they need to be compensated as well. They're working very hard, and they're as frustrated with their working conditions as any doctor. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, if our economy needs a red alert, well, our health care system, it needs a blue alert, Mr. Speaker. It's an exceptional state of affairs here in the North where we need both a public administrator and a health care sustainability unit who have been working for a year with little to show for it, seemingly, at least to my constituents and patients and nurses and doctors in my riding. Extraordinary times have called for extraordinary measures, but while we continue to expect this government to take decisive action, the action they must take to connect Northerners to the health care...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the largest cost driver for these deficits is the medical travel system. I've been told by constituents that they're being scheduled on multiple trips for procedures that could be grouped together into one trip; so you could have all four done instead of being spread out. And what they're being told is well, people like it this way. So are we letting the personal preference of medical travel clients dictate our spending efficiencies, or are we actually applying some policy here to make sure we're providing the most cost effective use of taxpayer dollars...

Thank you. So it sounds like the Minister is saying that because of that collective agreement, we can't offer any kind of labour market supplement or wage -- or shift premium or something like that. What options does the Minister have available to her that she could work with the union to bring this forward? It must be possible because we've been having these discussions about health care. We saw what happened during COVID. We have a Private Member's bill that we've been debating as well. Clearly, this is an issue that needs to get fixed. We need to compensate nurses. When's the Minister going...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in order to keep the emergency room doors from closing, a shift bidding process was brought forward by the health authority, which was very successful, and we were able to recruit the locum doctors we needed to prevent that from happening. At the time, it was said this process would be retired but it would inform future decisions. Can the Minister relay to the House how this successful strategy will change staffing retention and recruitment in the future for NTHSSA? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, sorry, and I'm not trying to jump the procedural queue on these things. I guess what I was getting at more so is are we budgeting -- is the base budget being calculated on previous fire seasons? And is that -- yeah, let's ask that. So is it like, depending -- so we spent $39 million more next year, so next year are they going to take that into calculation and bring back a forthcoming budget that looks closer to what we paid this year with hopes of going -- I understand that, like, we don't want to over budget for things but given that we have multiple reports...