David Krutko

Mr. Speaker, you do not have to assure me. I think you have to assure the people in those communities that don’t have policing, don’t have nursing — don’t have services — that they’re just as much residents of the Northwest Territories as the other 43,000 people here. We cannot be discriminated against by communities, simply by where you live. Those days are gone. We are not on reserves. We’re not in other foreign Third World countries. This is Canada; this is the Northwest Territories. But that’s the feeling I am getting by the way treatment is being allocated here.

I would like to ask the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is directed to the Premier in regard to the issue of capacity in our small communities.

We know we have challenges, but we also have to find unique solutions to our challenges. I would like to compliment the Department of Justice in regard to policing in Sachs Harbour — looking at solutions on how to get policing into the ten communities that don’t have police officers. Yet the Department of Health has had nurses located in our communities. Knowing that those capital dollars were expended, I would like to ask the Premier…. From our small communities we have...

Mr. Speaker, I just got off the phone with the individual. The individual told me herself that she likes working in Tsiigehtchic; she likes the people there; she’s willing to stay longer if that’s the point. Why is it that arrangements can’t be accommodated with a person who’s willing and committed to that community to serve that community? Why is it there are still roadblocks in the way by way of not offering that person a full time contract to work in that community rather than simply as and when?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We had a meeting that we attended in Tsiigehtchic, along with the Minister of Health and the Minister of Justice, in which the issue came up about nursing. The community made it clear to the Minister at that meeting that there was a nurse in the community who’s served there several years. She’s usually there during breakup and freeze-up — six weeks here, six weeks there. She’s presently working up in Holman and also in Tuktoyaktuk.

The community asked her to follow up on that by way of checking with the individual to see if she’s willing to spend more time in the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s been six years since the community of Tsiigehtchic has had a nurse in that community. Six years. If you pulled that off anywhere in Yellowknife — shut down one of their clinics for a week — you’d have a protest on your hands. It’s been six years since a nurse has been based in that community for any long period of time. For me, that is the issue we’re dealing with here today.

I’d like to ask the Minister: do you have any idea when they can physically see a nurse in the community of Tsiigehtchic, since they’ve been waiting six years?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is not only affecting my constituency; it’s affecting other regions throughout the Northwest Territories. We have some 28 communities that are struggling with health care systems. We have ten communities that don’t have policing or in some cases a nurse in those communities. I think it’s important that we realize this is a challenge we have to face. Realistically, it comes down to quality of health care and services to all people in the Northwest Territories.

I know you’re going to go around and have consultations and everything else, but for me that’s just another...

Today I would like to speak in regard to health and social services in the Mackenzie Delta. I know I’ve raised questions in this House time and time again, yet with no results in regard to improvements in services and, more important, promoting a healthy environment and protection of our residents and protection of our youth and our seniors in our communities.

When we have a shortage of nurses or in some cases where we have health centres that we build in communities and they’re not functional because we don’t have nurses to operate them, there’s a breakdown in regard to services being provided...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t think we are going to resolve this issue here today, so I would like to ask the Premier if he is committed, before the end of the sitting of this week, to sit down with Members from small communities and put some of these issues on the table and hopefully get the discussions going between himself and Members from small communities. This is definitely affecting the services in our communities, and I don’t think we’re going to be able to resolve it with the present system we have. I would like to ask the Premier for that commitment today.

Mr. Speaker, we have built health centres in our communities. We have built infrastructure in our communities. We have built schools, health centres, municipal offices. Again, the government really knows that by making those capital investments, we expect there will be some services out of those facilities we have in our communities.

I would like to ask the Premier: exactly where is the money, the dollars, going for those communities to operate and maintain those services so that we have a quality or standard of health care services throughout the Northwest Territories for all residents of the...

Mr. Speaker, I don’t know how else to put this. The person is committed. The money is already budgeted for that health centre to operate in regard to its O&M — the cost to operate, the cost of health care — for that community. There are dollars earmarked from this Legislature to run a health centre in Tsiigehtchic.

The community is more than willing to work with the health department to do this, but because the Department of Health or the board in Inuvik, which has 45 vacancies, which they can’t even administer.... They run a deficit.

Mr. Speaker, I’m not too sure how else to put it, but exactly...