Glen Abernethy

The contracts that we have with the southern facilities basically cover treatment costs as well as we cover travel costs to get our residents to and from these facilities, and we also have per diem costs that cover things like the food they eat and provide with them a warm, safe place to sleep, but as far as incidentals, the ability or the cash to buy cigarettes or other things, we don't provide that support to residents who are travelling south. They would either have to have other means, family supports, or, if they are eligible for or are on income support, they have a mechanism to seek...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I could get the Member some costs on the average cost for an individual who attends treatment. I don't have that information at my fingertips, but I can tell the Member that the cost that we pay to individual treatment facilities is different between the different facilities. We have contracted amounts. We pay a per-day rate that ranges anywhere from $160 per day to $450 a day, depending on the institution or the facility that an individual is attending. Those are contracted amounts based on the range and scope of programming that each of the facilities...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I've been listening carefully as everyone has been talking this afternoon and this is clearly a tough one, a tough discussion for many individuals. I hear two conversations that I believe are separate conversations but they're being morphed into one, and those are the right of individuals to run for election, but also the major problem we have here in the Northwest Territories of domestic violence. I truly appreciate the work that the committee did, and I know what they did was not easy and they put their hearts and souls into this report, and I truly...

Prior to moving to a single authority in the Northwest Territories, we used different protocols by regions and communities on how things were monitored and assessed. We now have 32 performance indicators that we utilize in the Northwest Territories and collect on a regular basis. That information helps make some evidence-based decisions moving forward. We are continually trying to enhance the monitoring that we are doing of the services and program delivery to make sure that they meet the needs of our residents, and we will continue to move forward. I am happy to sit down with the Member and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm glad the honourable Member took cigarettes off the list. When it comes to things like toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, shampoo, this is certainly something that I'm willing to look at and see how we might be able to roll those in to ensure that residents who don't have access to those materials or those products can gain access while they're in the treatment facilities. So I'll certainly commit to looking at that, Mr. Speaker, but once again, not cigarettes.

Residents of the Northwest Territories are Canadian citizens, so if they're travelling south to a treatment facility they are still able to get medical services in the jurisdiction of the province that they are receiving their services. We have reciprocal billing agreements with all the provinces and territories, so if our resident goes and receives health services there, we have a billing mechanism.

Not all residents of the Northwest Territories receive dental services from the Government of the Northwest Territories. We do have some extended health benefits for seniors and Metis that cover...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document entitled "Caring for Our People: Strategic Plan for the NWT Health and Social Services System 2017 to 2020." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the Member is correct. We did a significant amount of work on this in the previous Assembly, where legislation was actually passed to allow us to support human and tissue donation. In the Northwest Territories it was agreed at that time that given the magnitude of the project and the small size of the jurisdiction it made more sense to actually cooperate and join with Alberta on their registry. They have far greater capacity than us. We had actually entered into negotiations with them at that time and had some dollars set aside and allocated to support this...

Yes, please.

As I indicated, I have already directed the department to look at the possibility of spitting out the roles, our quality assurance/patient representatives, into two separate roles. That wouldn't necessarily address the Member's issue about community-based advocacy or guidance, because that would likely be a regional position.

When I was up in the Beaufort Delta last week, when I met with leadership to talk about the critical incident review, the leader of the IRC, the president of the IRC, indicated to me that they were working with the federal government. There was a pot of money out there...