Shauna Morgan

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Premier around the health care sustainability unit. So the first question is does the Premier view the mandate of the health care sustainability unit as primarily to cut services that are non-core, seen as perhaps unnecessary or too fancy? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So given that currently we have nobody on the waiting list in Fort Smith and initially the estimated demand from the previous studies had been that there would be a demand of 33 people by now, it seems that that's pretty far off, and given that we're already moving forward more quickly with the long-term care facility in Hay River, where there's only six people on the waiting list and the plan is to build a 24-bed facility, is it feasible to think that perhaps people in Smith might be able to access a long-term care facility in in Hay River if there was -- if we were sort...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So just following up on my colleague from Frame Lake's questions about the long-term care facilities.

Well, my first question is if we are expecting in 2025 to do an update on bed projections, why would we move forward with planning for, in particular, the long-term care facility being proposed in Fort Smith and Fort Simpson instead of waiting for the updated bed projections? Because the planning would proceed for a specific size of facility. It says the planning is for -- in Fort Smith, a 24-bed facility, and yet we see now that there's actually nobody on the waiting list...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I mean, I know that I'll just be continuing to learn about the capital planning process and, you know, certainly my concern is that we ensure that we are able to address all of the most severe most urgent life safety issues and we don't have projects competing with each other that are all at that level, and that we also have enough money to ensure that we're taking care of our assets and preventing sort of disasters or breakdowns or life safety issues down the road. So I'll just continue to have this on my mind but keep learning about the process. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, on a heartwarming note to end the week, I'd like to shine a spotlight on the transformative work that the NWT Literacy Council has been doing in communities across the territory. Their program Reading Together provides opportunities for fathers who are incarcerated to connect with their children through bedtime stories. They get to choose a book that their children would like, create a reading kit to send to their kids, including new pajamas, stuffies, and a toothbrush, and then the dad gets to make a recording of him reading the book and sending bedtime...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I guess my area of confusion -- and maybe the Minister can clear this up -- is that on the one hand it seems to be the place where projects that keep getting deferred end up that aren't necessarily top of the priority list but, on the other hand, we see that some of these projects are there because it's a life safety issue. And so I don't know how both of those can be true. Can the Minister explain? Thank you.

I definitely appreciate that. So when the department is considering new highways, new capital highway projects, is the data about how much it takes to maintain and repair a highway each year -- is that taken into account in terms of predicting future O and M and capital costs for a highway; is that taken into account before embarking on a new highway capital project? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. When this project was thought up, was there alternatives that were identified in a, you know, project proposal in terms of how else they challenges might be addressed? And does that document still exist somewhere? I know that it's -- we're a little bit further along into the project now but I'm just trying to understand how a project like this gets ranked as sort of top priority as a major new capital building in our territorial budget when it seems that there are alternatives to building a $32 million building. But were other possible solutions to those challenges...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister explain which kind of highway repairs would fall under capital versus which might fall under operations and maintenance? We see a number of different highway projects listed here under asset management. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. And so currently these services are already being provided out of a leased space, so -- but an A rating for mitigation, I think -- unless I'm misunderstanding the system -- implies that there's very few to no alternatives. What's wrong with the idea of just continuing to lease space instead of building a new $32 million building? Thank you.