Glen Abernethy

Mr. Speaker, when an individual is staying at one of our boarding homes, the transportation is included in the boarding home contract, so they are compensated for providing that transportation. Transportation is intended or supposed to be provided to and from the airport, but also to and from appointments. If the Member has some specific incidents he would like to raise, I would certainly like to hear those to see how often that is happening. Maybe it is something that we need to look a little bit more deeply at.

Yes there are all sorts of different support groups that exist throughout the Northwest Territories. In addition, we have a cancer care coordinator who works out of Stanton Territorial Hospital and does provide outreach to support NWT cancer patients throughout their entire cancer journey. When the cancer coordinator is aware of a cancer patient via healthcare provider or by a self-referral, she does let patients know about the supports that are available to them that are appropriate and does work to connect them with those resources.

Mr. Speaker, the medical travel guide also lists a number of...

As we’re looking into our contract, if there are any irregularities or changes coming, I’m certainly happy to share that information with Members. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we do have contracts with a number of providers, both here, and in Yellowknife, as an example, as well as in Edmonton. These homes provide incredibly valuable services to the residents of the Northwest Territories who do need to receive care and/or assessments and diagnosis outside of their home communities. We are always monitoring how the contract is being administered. I will commit to having a conversation with the department to find out where we are now, when the last sort of review was done, and any information I get, I am certainly happy to share...

This goes to the fact that we have put in a new system for actually collecting data, and we have tested it rigorously to ensure that the data collection is something that is both useful and practical, and it will give us information we need to make informed decisions moving forward. Mr. Speaker, I certainly would like to see a copy of the information the Member is making reference to, and put it in context with respect to where that letter was sent to, who, and what was it answering as opposed to making assumptions in this House on exactly what the conversation before and after was.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, audits prepared by the Department of Health and Social Services around Child and Family Services, are never made public or shared with committee as a result of the confidential nature of much of the detail and information contained within. When I met with committee in January 2017 when we discussed the audit, I indicated that although we had put in a new audit process as a result of recommendations from the Auditor General of Canada and as part of our building stronger families, an audit was done that looked at qualitative and quantitative data, and a new...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, over the years there have been some suggestions on what the cost of alcohol is on the system. I think the Member has actually shared some numbers that he had with me. I can’t remember what those numbers are at this time, but I will go back and see what we can provide as far as what those numbers are. I might have to look at Hansard because I think the Member might have actually used those numbers at a previous date and once upon a time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it’s a fairly broad question but I’ll do my best to stick to youth and younger people as the Member’s statement focused in what I thought was mostly about youth. We are coming forward. We have just tabled more recently the Youth and Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan which articulates and outlines a number of things that we need to do as a government and as an Assembly to support our youth who are struggling with either mental health issues or addictions issues.

One of the key things that we’re looking to do is providing some quality counselling...

Much of that work has been done, but much of that work is also ongoing. It continues to evolve. It is one of the items in the Continuing Care Action Plan. Actually, it is in objective number one. I believe it is on page 5 that it talks about elder abuse, and it is continuing the work that we are doing in partnership with the NWT Seniors' Society to finalize a standard set of elder abuse screening tools and to test those tools as well. It also includes protocols and intervention procedures for youth by a different health care provider. When an individual comes into a health centre, as an...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one of the things we’ve talked about in this House before is looking at the rates that are being charged for different long-term care facilities in the Northwest Territories per bed, but with Avens as an example, we have taken some steps already. Last month, September, the department provided Avens with funding to pay the major loan that has been taken to do some site preparation, so we paid off their $1.1 million loan which is going to help them address some of their costs with respect to paying back that loan but also some of the interest costs on that...