Charles Dent

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Good afternoon. On June 15th, NWT seniors will recognize World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, which has the theme of My World, Your World, Our World, Free of Elder Abuse. Sadly, 80 percent of abuse or neglect of older adults goes unreported. Many NWT seniors feel isolated and alone, even when they have family visiting regularly.

Also next month, we will celebrate Seniors' Week from June 16th to June 27th. Seniors’ Week is an opportunity for us to take some time to recognize the importance of seniors in our northern communities. The theme this year, Seniors Helping Seniors...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said, when I met with the deputy for Human Resources, I asked that she talk to the other deputies to encourage them to ensure that the departments were hiring summer students as much as possible. We will continue that work, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Subsequent to the Member’s first question on this issue, I met with the deputy and we have work started already to follow up with departments to find out what positions they are going to have and to find out whether or not there are going to be any fewer positions going to be offered this year compared to previous years.

As well, we have summer students who are employed in Human Resources actually phoning and contacting students this week, it started this week, to ensure that they are still looking for work and to find out if they have been contacted by departments. So...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said, both Health and Social Services and FMBS have those comprehensive plans now. An overall broad government plan can’t be comprehensive. It’s going to have to be the broad brush strokes, the high level plan, because you can’t say that all departments are going to work exactly the same way. So we want to set up some general criteria and say to the deputies, can your department work within this and then have each department work on their own detailed plan. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would agree with the Member that the best practice would be for the government to have a corporate human resource plan. In fact, the department has prepared a broad, high level plan to take to deputies here within the next two months. So we are hoping to move forward with that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are planning to change the focus of the Income Support Program from one of a program of last resort, to one that looks at what are the needs of an individual and a person who is disabled needs an ability to participate in society. They have different needs than somebody who is able bodied and perhaps just in between jobs. So the focus of the program is going to be significantly different. I believe we will be able to significantly improve on the supports that we are providing. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I have said, we agree that this is a serious issue, the issue around access to the records and how the information has failed. We will look at that. I will report back to the Member.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I intend to follow up on this issue with some detail. Again, I will advise Members of what I am able to find out. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said, I'll discuss the issue with the Premier and my Cabinet colleagues, and review the situation and we will make an appropriate response. I don't want to commit to anything without having all of the details, all of the background that I can get. Mr. Speaker, I'll ensure, though, that Members are kept informed of what process we embark on. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our colleague Mr. Braden is the chair of the AFS Interculture Program here in Yellowknife, and he has today invited a number of participants in that program to visit us in the Legislative Assembly. These are students who are visiting from other countries and attending school at Sir John Franklin. Mr. Speaker, the resident from Frame Lake who is here today -- at least temporarily from Frame Lake, he's actually from Denmark -- is Mr. Emil Madsen. He's hosted by Peter and Jenni Bannon.

---Applause