Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask some questions to the Minister of the Department of Health and Social Services today. It is with regard to some of our most vulnerable clientele who have low incomes and are probably not ready for when we send some of our residents down to out-of-jurisdiction treatment facilities. I’d like to ask the Minister, him personally as the Minister of Health and Social Services, is he familiar with the type of environment and atmosphere that our residents and people in care who get treatment, the physical environment, that our residents will be going into...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I said, there are some concerns that I have with this section of the budget and rather than get into detail I would like to just come right out and I’d just like to read another motion into the House.

Mr. Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the government allocate an additional $1.2 million to extend the child and family resource programs and services to at least six small communities in the 2014-15 fiscal year; and further, that the Department of Health and Social Services collaborate with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to utilize school facilities for the child and family resource programs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I know the importance of home care in the community and I know I did break it down on average just to see what it was in places like Yellowknife and some of the smaller communities that have a lot of our elderly senior citizens who don’t want to leave home and want to live that independent lifestyle in their community. Those are where we see some of the higher per capita numbers, and I just want to make sure that we do have the services to support them.

Moving forward, I know I had some questions in the House, and it brought me on to seniors, which also deals with home care, but when I was...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Committee did some hard work going through the business planning session and I feel that bringing motions forward for recommendations that, as chair of the standing committee, I do stand behind the hard work of the committee members, the staff, and the departments that came and presented before us and gave us some of their concerns and issues as well.

As this is a recommendation, I will be supporting the motion. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just following up to some of the positions within the, I guess, authorities in general, we have in this part of the department here shared services. We did receive some concerns from some of the, I guess you could say, some of the computer divisions within the authority that there was a presentation given that would amalgamate all the local computer supports from across the Northwest Territories with the TSC, and although there was talk that no positions would be lost, especially full-time positions, the Department of Human Resources said otherwise. I’m just wondering...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to ask the Minister on our indeterminate, full-time positions for the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority, because we’re just approving the numbers here today, we don’t see the full structure of how positions are allocated within the system. Can I ask the Minister, is the authority losing any positions but gaining other positions in other areas? I see there are four and I’m assuming we’ll have all the same positions when I look at this, four new ones, but I don’t see if there is going to be any positions that are lost and more positions put...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In some cases, our clientele and residents can’t really take the type of treatment or the facility or even the clientele that they’re housed with.

In the worst-case scenario, if a person were to leave the residential treatment facility, does this government offer some type of support service to get them back home to their communities in a safe and timely manner?

The Minister hasn’t had that opportunity, so I’m assuming some of our physicians and counsellors probably didn’t have that opportunity as well. When we’re preparing our clients who are getting treatment for addictions counselling or some type of other issue, how does this government prepare our residents and our clients who are going down south for treatment for some of the things they might see? When you get into the cities, there are more hard-core addicts, there are people who have lived other lifestyles that don’t connect or relate to the type of life we live up here in the Northwest...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The committee is in strong support of the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan; however, Members do feel that the portion allocated to this initiative and recommended the additional allocation of funding for the priorities in the action plan, and as I mentioned earlier, including but not limited to the detox facilities, after-care and enhanced mental health services. Also, to gain the judiciary’s confidence in the wellness courts, enhancements to existing mental health services will likely be required. Furthermore, this has been a big initiative of mine since...