Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Before I begin I’d just like to thank the mover and the seconder for bringing the motion forward to bring out a good discussion and debate, which you are seeing before the House here and a lot of good points from both sides, actually.

Upon the notice of motion that was given last week, I almost immediately sent out e-mails and posted on social media to get feedback from residents of the Northwest Territories but also constituents from Inuvik. I heard a lot of good points for, and a lot were against. Some of the arguments that were for supporting this motion were for...

The Minister mentioned the exception process of going through the practitioner. Can the Minister confirm the process for an exceptional grant to get the necessary accommodations or travel for a resident to get back home? Can he confirm that the patient, resident or family of the resident would go through the process of getting a letter or note from the practitioner in order to get these extra expenses paid that are unforeseen should an individual fall sick or need some medical attention while on a trip? Can he confirm that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a follow-up to my Member’s statement, I just want to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services a couple questions on the Medical Travel Policy.

In terms of one of our NWT residents who might travel to a regional centre or to here in Yellowknife either for personal or business type of travel and they end up getting sick or succumb to illness where they have to be admitted into the hospital or be under some type of observation over a couple days and they have to take care of their travel back, what does the policy state in terms of taking care of any type of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m enjoying the good discussion on the amendments of the motion here today. Given the short notice of this amendment to the motion that’s on the floor, even with the good nature of trying to come up with an agreement within the House, with the short notice I can’t support the motion going forward. As stated in my earlier comments, with the options that I discussed with constituents back home, the majority just said to leave it the same. I’m going to stick with that and I won’t be supporting the motion brought forth. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned, these are unforeseen medical concerns or issues that might come up at any given time.

What is the turnaround date in any of these appeals or exceptional processes? Is there a timeline? A lot of times they might just need one, two or three days of assistance. What is the timeline in the turnover to get these expenses covered or any of the additional supports the resident or patient might need? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

You heard earlier in another Member’s statement about the work that NGOs do on behalf of people of the Northwest Territories, and in some cases NGOs have to cut costs where they can or make savings where they can, so sometimes they don’t pay for a full flight return ticket back to their communities. Sometimes they’re not able to make those changes if they get a ticket on a seat sale or something. Those are some of the issues the come, because some people that do come to some of the bigger centres might be on a fixed income, should it be a senior, somebody living with a disability or somebody...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to focus my Member’s statement today on another concern and issue that we have with our Medical Travel Policy. As Members who represent people of the public, we come across situations that we don’t always account for or ever think that would happen. This was the case of one my most recent situations, where an individual who was travelling inside the Northwest Territories – or any individual, for that matter, who runs into some unforeseen health issues and whether or not our government takes care of them while they are in the situation when they might have been...

I want to ask the Minister, has he changed any policies or do any policies need to be changed in order to get individuals into the job? Like I said yesterday, there were some challenges for some individuals in Inuvik who were just trying to get casual employment and had to go through all the hoops to get their application on the desk.

So, have any policies changed within the government system that allows residents of the Northwest Territories to actually get into these jobs? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had some questions in the House yesterday in regard to some human resources issues. I just wanted to bring to attention today there was a Minister’s statement or a Minister’s news release on October 13, 2013, that mentioned the Regional Recruitment Program. I’ve made reference to it calling it the 80/20 program, where the residents of the NWT who actually try to get into the GNWT workforce get paid 80 percent of their salary and 20 percent of that overall salary goes into training.

I want to ask the Minister of Human Resources some questions later on the implementation...

In the news release that was sent out on October 23, 2013, it mentioned that the program would help reduce barriers in entering the workforce. Yesterday I got a call from a constituent having some issues with them getting into the job system and this was just for a casual position.

Would the Minister consider, or is his department looking at some of the lower level job positions or entry level job positions such as administrative assistants or jobs on the front line, working with individuals who have been in the job for five, 10 or 20 years? We have those statistics. Would he look at trying to...