Shauna Morgan

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the Minister acknowledging that this is needed for things like emergency services. Even, you know, deliveries of things like fuel, it becomes a huge problem when you can't specify where they're supposed to go. So I wasn't clear from that answer, is there a commitment from this government to address civic addressing for unincorporated residences? It sounds like there's discussions, but is there a commitment to figure it out by the end of this Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the amount for short-term interest, it's budgeted at $6.1 million, and that's the same amount that was budgeted for in the 2024-2025 mains, but then the revised amount was -- well, getting close to twice that amount, over $11 million, and the 2023-2024 actuals were almost $20 million. Does the Minister feel that the budgeted amount is realistic for this coming fiscal year especially given the increased pressures and indication that we're going to have to increase our borrowing limit going forward? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So can the Minister clarify whether the establishment of Dechinta as a private college would require new legislation; and if so, how long would that take or what would be the timeline for that Act being introduced in this House? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And so just to clarify on that, does the CRTC offer any funding to us, or they're simply -- it's the way they regulate or their policies that impacts us and that's what we're engaging with them on? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

So the GNWT's multi-year funding agreement with Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning is set to expire in March 2025. So while most of Dechinta's funding has come from the federal level as well as private sources, GNWT funding is critical to show other donors and funders that the institution is critical to this territory, and a multi-year funding commitment is necessary to ensure Dechinta can actually secure its faculty staffing because professors would not agree to work on a month's notice year...

Thanks. That does help to clarify but I just am still wanting clarity on the specific question of if it's unfunded, would it show up in the number in our budget of active positions? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay. And so it sounds like -- well, maybe the Minister can confirm whether any new hires were done as a result of the transfer of TSC and whether there was any net increase in staff. It sounds like there were unfunded staff, so I'm not clear whether they were counted previously in our budget documents as official staff positions. So I guess the couple questions related there are were there any new hires and was there any net increase in staff positions related to that transfer of TSC from Infrastructure to Finance. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, that helps clarify. It is in the business plan under access to health care but now I understand that it's a broader program, but there's -- it's just mentioned there as something that might help our health care recruitment efforts as well. And perhaps I'll follow up later with health and social services to see how well they're doing on health care recruitment. So that's all for now. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. I look forward to seeing progress on that one.

Another question I had related to business plans was one of finance's goals is increasing awareness around the Indigenous development training program which is related to health care recruitment efforts, and it does say that the goal is to support seven employees per year in health related fields.

Can the Minister help increase our awareness of what exactly this training program does, like, what -- is it a certification or what it prepares people for and how it helps with health care recruitment? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I can appreciate that answer, and certainly I'm not suggesting that we should sort of ban agency nurses as they might be needed in emergency situations or to fill in urgent gaps. However, my concern is if our system becomes designed to continually rely on them, and I do hope and I want to keep emphasizing that it is important work of both the health care system sustainability unit and the public administrator, to look at appropriate staffing models as part of their work, staffing levels and what kind of staff and the right numbers of staff that are needed.

I would just...