Great Slave

Statements in Debates

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 81)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's unfortunate the Member is upset. I appreciate his concern, but the bottom line is the air-handling systems to actually do this appropriately would be very, very cost prohibitive in our older health centres.

On a case-by-case basis we have worked with families to help with transportation costs. We look at every one. Every time we get asked to do that, we look at it to see what we can do, and in many cases we've been able to help families. Not always, but for the most part we do what we can to help.

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 81)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there is still a lot of planning to do and a lot of work that needs to be done. I'll have to confirm with the department when we think we might actually be able to break ground. Before we break ground, a significant amount of work does have to happen. We have to find potential partners; we have to find potential builders. We're looking at the H.H. Williams site. That building will likely have to come down before we get there. I will get more information for the Member to get as close to a potential break ground date, recognizing that a lot of work has to...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 81)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this is something that has come up time and again. As we move forward with new facilities such as the facility in Providence, the facility in Fort Resolution, and other facilities, we actually do include this capacity in those new buildings. We are not planning at this point in time to build an addition or a substantial change to the facility in Fort Resolution to accommodate that, but, as it moves down in the capital plan, we would certainly be looking at something along those lines in all of our new facilities.

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 81)

In many of our facilities where we have commercial kitchens we have had difficulty providing a service of traditional foods, but this is one of the things we are working on in the Department of Health and Social Services, is to find mechanisms to ensure that individuals are getting traditional foods. We are always able to bring traditional foods in and cook them in the shared kitchens as opposed to the commercial kitchens. In many of our facilities we do have interpreters who can provide language services to those who are unilingual, and where they don't we try to make sure that there are...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 81)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, in the previous Assembly, I was honoured to be the Minister of Health and Social Services, and I did have an opportunity to travel into Jean Marie at that time, and that exact question came up. We indicated to them at the time that we would be certainly open to some discussions if they wanted to propose something to us to build and own. We are still open to those conversations. I am certainly happy to work with the Department of Infrastructure, or rather have the Department of Health and Social Services work with the staff in Infrastructure to explore that...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 81)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do not have that information at my fingertips. I will commit to getting that information to the Member and committee. Thank you.

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 81)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I am probably not the best person to ask that. I am the client in this particular situation. I really cannot speak to the technical requirements around building or how they are building the buildings. Sorry.

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 80)

The first step is obviously for the Department of Health and Social Services to work with Infrastructure to review the different pots that have been made available by the federal government to see what, if anything, fits nicely that we can actually use towards this end.

Also, as I have already indicated, we are working with the NWT Housing Corporation and the Minister responsible for Homelessness to make sure that we have opportunities or places where individuals could go when fleeing family violence. We do not know what pots necessarily might be able to cover this, but as this work gets done...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 80)

As I indicated, we do have money in our budget to actually support individuals to get to communities where there are some family violence shelters, but also recognizing that the last thing we want to do is having individuals who are fleeing family violence end up homeless. I have had a number of conversations with the Minister responsible for Homelessness about how we can incorporate this particular issue into our work on homelessness here in the Northwest Territories to see what we can do to support individuals who are fleeing family violence.

Mr. Speaker, there is currently a territorial...

Debates of , 18th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 80)

As we've moved forward with the single system here in the Northwest Territories, we're focused on providing customer or client services that meet the needs of our residents. I would strongly encourage that the Member have individuals who are facing these challenges get in touch with social services who will hopefully be able to provide them with the guidance to help them get to family violence shelters around the Northwest Territories