Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, to my right is the deputy minister of the Department of Health and Social Services, Mr. Chuck Parker; and, to my left, Mr. Mark Aitken, director of legislation, Department of Justice.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, that Bill 12, Public Health Act, be read for the third time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to introduce Bill 13, Change of Name Act. This bill replaces the current Change of Name Act.

The bill transfers administrative responsibility for change of name from the court to the registrar general of vital statistics, Department of Health and Social Services. This change will give NWT residents the ability to request a legal change of name through an administrative process that is easy to understand and follow, similar to that in other Canadian jurisdictions.

In keeping with the Human Rights Act of the Northwest Territories, and the Canadian Charter...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we have only one office that deals with these functions. It is the health services administration office up in Inuvik. As it is stated, during the process of establishing this and coming into force, we will have a transition plan put in place. As I am aware of today, the way the office works, different files are given to different individuals in that office. Once that is done, we can clearly make that available to all people in the Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’ll have to get that information. I was made aware that the surgery ward was back open. I’m not sure what they’ve done to deal with the space situation, as the Member raised earlier the fact that we’ve taken some of that and turned it into office space. I’ll have to get back to the Member with that information. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, in fact, with this bill going ahead and dealing with it through the health services administration office up in Inuvik, it is one office. The workload is broken up between individuals in that office for different areas. So this would fall into that pattern and would make it much simpler as we proceed forward.

Yes, as I stated earlier, on the issue of when names were changed by no fault of their own or an action by the government through regulations, we would look at establishing a process where, if it is by no fault of their own, we could put a nominal...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When I say "we," ultimately, working with the Health and Social Services authorities and when we talk about infrastructure dollars and how we proceed in the delivery of service in any community, the department gets involved in that process. Of course, different authorities take the lead on a number of initiatives. In this case, the Yellowknife Health and Social Services is the lead on this initiative, but, as a department, we are definitely plugged in on that and we will work with them. We will pass on the information. As we proceed, we would, being the department...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, it does not coincide with Quebec, but it does coincide with other jurisdictions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member is correct that there is work done on this and part of the problem is we’ve worked with a lot of organizations, the Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority, Stanton and other groups, but a lot of the work has been done quite some time ago. The idea of the consolidated clinics has been on the books for some time within the department looking how we can proceed with this and if there’s an opportunity to move it forward. It goes back into an annual basis where when we do our budget planning, if we don’t have a contract let on a facility...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, there will be a couple of routes that will be determined as an application is made or as the process is established what we are going to. Not wanting to confuse the issue, I will have Mr. Parker give some detail on that and how it works.