Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, measuring success is really an objective kind of philosophy. For a young child, perhaps coming from a family of parents who drink frequently, success was one day sober. For other people, it might be longer. What we have done, the number of individuals requiring a return to treatment is reduced, and the length of time between treatment is increased are the ways that we will measure. I do want to qualify that success may not mean that less people, more time before rehab treatment. Again, those things might not be the success. I think it is an individual family...

Thank you, Madam Chair. In my opening comments on the mandate, there was a paragraph that says we also recognize that, to better report and meaningfully measure progress, in many cases, we need to establish indicators and improve program evaluation. The work we do towards ambitious goals set in the mandate will include the establishment of new indicators and a greater focus on program evaluation. Madam Chair, as I have said many times, one of my specialties is an accreditation in best practices. Therefore, we are going to be doing more measurable outcomes throughout the GNWT over the next four...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Those are some of the ideas that we are hoping to draw out as we work with employees and partners to identify the factors contributing to retention. I am a social worker, it is kind of close, but I don't deal with blood. The reality is that I am thinking that the fact that we don't have enough healthcare professionals might be one of the biggest issues that we have with that. People do need to have holidays. We do need to keep them. I do believe that GNWT has strict policies on those things. If we are saying you can't, it is because we don't have enough staff. We need...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The title "What will we do" is "Strengthen community counselling services." Waitlists are regarding that. You can't reduce the wait times for access unless we have other options to do it. This is one that we do have statistics, so we do have a percentage that we want to lower it by, hopefully. We can't lower that until we have stronger peer support groups, until we have managed alcohol groups, all those things that are being implemented before will help us with the wait times. That is why it is at the end. It is because we need all of the other programs and support to...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Absolutely. The three territories have over the years, many years is my understanding, developed strong partnerships when we go to speak to the federal government. We will continue to do so, and I will make a commitment to bring this issue forward to the other two Premiers. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am going to start with: do we have anything in the future? Do we have in existence? We need to be open to all ideas as we move forward. What do we have currently? Again, I am going to try to be politically correct. Not all people that have addictions are unemployed. In fact, the vast majority of them, I am guessing, may be employed. You have to have money to pay for your addictions. My father was a great weekend warrior. I don't know if people know that term. Come to me later if you don't understand the term. All of these services actually are for people, not only...

Thank you, Madam Chair. This will have to be determined as we move forward with implementing the program. However, I do want to say that medical detox and managed alcohol are very specific programs that have to be monitored properly by medical professions. This isn't just giving out free drinks to everyone and hoping that they survive it. It would have to be in places that they have the capacity, the health centres that have the capacity, to be able to do this. At this point, we haven't defined exactly where. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will again ask the health Minister to expand on my answer, but I do want to state and I am not sure if I have told him yet, so I might be telling him, is that one of the diamond mines has already approached us. While I was the Minister, I was not adverse. I will take the support where we need it. The smart thing is to do that. That is the knowledge economy, the money we can bring in. On that, I will pass it over and let the health Minister expand if he so wishes, if the chair allows. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. If we can direct the question to the Minister of ENR.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know that the Member didn't want training, but training is spring 2021. We are doing standardized screening and assessment tools to help people, to assess people. These timelines were defined between "be conservative because we are going to get slaughtered; we don't have enough money" and "be bold because we want to see some progress." It was kind of an in between. Some of these mandates we were already working on. Departments are already on. If we can get them done sooner, I would be the strongest advocate to get them done sooner. Thank you, Madam Chair.