David Krutko

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we all know, we basically established the legislation to empower the communities, but again, I think by bringing forward these statute amendments, I am wondering if there is any fiscal obligations that we may have or that there could be fiscal pressures put on the municipalities or local governments to administer these statutes by way of the amendments. If so, is this government going to be financially providing assistance to those communities that may have to take on more work in the light of the challenges they have?

I know a lot of the communities, especially in...

Thank you. Those are all good programs, but the downfall of that program is the way that you do the household income testing. As soon as a family member comes to visit their parents or a relative or a grandchild comes to spend some time with their parents, they’re penalized, and for me that is the problem with the programs. We have to remove those barriers where you penalize families for visiting family members. I think that is the key in making sure this program works. So could we remove that clause that discriminates families from being families? So I’d like to ask the Premier if he can...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are directed to the Premier in light of the program services we have to offer for our seniors and to ensure them that they do live independently, more importantly, that there are supports for them to remain in their home communities in their homes and not have to leave our communities to other facilities such as, say, long-term care facilities in Inuvik and elsewhere. I would like to ask the Premier, would he take it into consideration that there is also an economic cost of having to move people into those types of facilities, the daily cost, the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In regard to the whole devolution process I don’t think we really have had an opportunity to have a discussion on it publicly in the format of this House or Committee of the Whole. I think that we do have to give it due diligence and make sure that we do have some discussion on it.

I believe that devolution has been a long time coming, but at what cost are we willing to proceed. I think the challenge we face, the agreement that we have in front of us, the question is did we get an agreement simply for the sake of getting an agreement or have we got the best agreement we...

Mr. Chair, I’m talking about the smaller communities that are struggling. They basically have small populations, they’re receiving less revenues from the Government of the Northwest Territories because of the way the gas tax dollars have been allocated and we are seeing some challenges by way of human resource challenges by simply administering and offering those requirements that we put on them through this type of legislation.

I think at the end of the day we have to be cognizant that all communities are not the same. It might be great for large municipalities where you have a large workforce...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Premier for his comments, but again, we do have to remove those barriers that do put barriers on families, and more importantly, the elders, because at the end of the day the elders are being penalized. They’re not accessing those programs simply because they didn’t have the paperwork. They didn’t have the income requirements that are needed by the program. So I’d just like to ask that they allow for some flexibility, some exemptions where a family member is there taking care of the person, which is saving the government costs, and that we’re able...

Mr. Speaker, I think that we also have to realize that there is a cost associated with the operation of a long-term care facility, incarceration programs. I will use the Arctic Tern Facility in Inuvik where we had one inmate which was costing this government some $5,000 a day to keep that one inmate in that facility, in excess of $150,000 a month. I think that we have to be realistic. The cost of keeping elders in their home is a lot cheaper than providing them that assistance and putting them in long-term care facilities where you have 24-hour care and provided by their families. I would just...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have over 120 elders over the age of 70 in my constituency, all the way up to 98 years of age. Mr. Speaker, most of these elders have lived independently all their lives. They own their own homes. They’ve worked hard all their lives. Now, Mr. Speaker, they depend on a fixed income, which is their pensions.

Mr. Speaker, so many times as an MLA we get calls from the elders in our communities about the challenges they face trying to access government programs and services, and especially when realizing that they have a fixed income, being told to fill out tons of...

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Welcome, witnesses. We’re on page 8-7. Mr. Abernethy.

Minister of Justice.