Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There were a lot of recommendations that were brought up from standing committee in terms of meeting with students and staff at the Yellowknife Campus here. I guess my first question would be to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

What is the status and update of making any types of renovations or work to the Yellowknife Campus to make sure there’s enough space for our students and staff to do their work in and study in and get a quality education in a safe environment? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I welcome the Minister back to the House. I have some questions for him, as well, today. I’d like to ask the Minister, in follow up to my Member’s statement earlier about seniors and programs that we do have for seniors, looking at the report, Our Elders, Our Communities document that was tabled in May 2014, some of the statistics show that elders who receive home care services vary from region to region. In some cases there are a lot of seniors who require that kind of service.

So I’d like to ask the Minister, what is our government doing to offset some of those high...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last Thursday I stood up in the House to congratulate one of our elders back home a happy 95th birthday. On Friday, when I jumped on the plane and was at the airport, I ran into some of our community members who were actually here in Yellowknife for a training course put on by the NWT Seniors’ Society, possibly in partnership with our Department of Health and Social Services, in dealing with seniors. What we talked about was numerous different issues which have always come to the forefront of this House, some in reference to elder abuse.

I just want to mention that on...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a few comments. The money allocated for the Heritage Fund, as the Minister knows, when we were at NWT Days and speaking with Norway about where their Heritage Fund was at, they were just reaching $1 trillion. Even as small a number as this is for our government, we are taking the right steps and moving forward in terms of building on to this Heritage Fund for future generations of NWT, especially with the fiscal situation we see ourselves in. This might be something that might be able to help, like I said, future generations.

I too, like Mr. Yakeleya, would like to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned earlier in my Member’s statement, I did speak with some people in the airports that were here for some training last week. I’m not sure if it was in partnership with Health and the Seniors’ Society, but it’s a great support system that we have for people who do this job.

My last question is in terms of the Care Mobility Program that the Housing Corporation is putting out there in this upcoming budget where the Housing Corp goes out to the communities and they help build the homes for seniors.

I’d like to ask, has the Minister had any input or given any...

I’m glad to hear the Minister speak towards elder abuse and creating some kind of awareness program.

There are all kinds of elder abuse, financial, physical, psychological, neglect, you could go on and on with the list. One thing that I’ve brought up in this House over the years is the duty to report and whether or not that’s something this government would like to implement as a policy for our senior care staff, or even the RCMP or anybody that works with seniors, that if they believe there’s abuse occurring that they have a duty to report that abuse.

Is there any update on that duty to report...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too would like to welcome Chief Ernest Betsina to the House as well as Mayor Ray Ruben. I hope you enjoy the proceedings. Welcome to the House.

I’d also like to welcome the FOXY peer leaders. That is a great program and one that I fully support. That you for all the hard work that you’re doing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to take this opportunity to make comments on this last operations budget for the 17th Legislative Assembly.

Before I begin, I would like to take a moment to thank the GNWT employees for their hard work and dedication and their innovative thinking for the contribution to this budget. I know we’ve been under a fiscal restraint policy for the last three years and the work that they had to do I can only imagine to be challenging. I’d also like to thank the stakeholders, special interest groups and residents of the Northwest Territories for their input, not only into...

As we go through the budget, we understand that there are going to be some seniors homes that are being built in some of the communities across the Northwest Territories.

Is the Minister working with the communities to look at how we can train some of our local residents to take those jobs in those seniors’ homes when they’re up and ready to run? Is he starting now to get the proper training for our local residents so they can have the jobs in those homes? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Dolynny.

Inclusion of IPC in Implementation of Health Information Act

The committee is in agreement with the Commissioner’s assertion that the GNWT can only benefit from involving the office of the IPC in the work that it is doing to implement the Health Information Act and encourages the GNWT to avail itself of the expertise that the office can provide.

As noted by the IPC in her 2013-2014 Annual Report, the ATIPP Act requires public bodies to respond to access requests within 30 days. Certain exceptions are provided for in very specific instances. As the...