Glen Abernethy

Mr. Speaker, I'm happy to have my staff talk to the Member's staff in order to coordinate a date where we can have this conversation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Maybe I can get the Member to ask the question again. The changes that have taken place across the Northwest Territories with respect to the provision of health and social services in a single authority are pretty massive. There's job reorganization, design structure, there have been a lot of staffing actions to move people into the single authority. We've done our best to make sure that, you know, we haven't lost any of our front line provisions, but we are seeking, and continue to seek, input from our Regional Wellness Councils on local design.

There's a significant amount that's happened...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when it comes to nutrition in the Northwest Territories, the Department of Health and Social Services through Public Health is trying to educate people across the Northwest Territories on healthy choices, healthy eating, and how it relates to overall health and wellbeing.

As far as a food security policy, we don't have a food security policy within the department. We're more focused on education and having people understand the value and importance of eating good food. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

To ensure that the care coaches -- those are the individuals who actually respond to the calls and are participating in the group counselling -- are ready to work with residents of the Northwest Territories, information is provided to them on a regular basis about the Northwest Territories; the realities, region by region, of the types of challenges that are being faced; the number of suicides; other mental health challenges; as well as some of the community realities so that they are aware of those realities. They also have a number of local resources that they can call in, the health and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member is asking for my opinion on something that I haven't actually had any discussion with the Member on. I'm not sure exactly what the Member means by an "integrated case management approach" to this particular challenge that we face across the Northwest Territories. I would be happy if the Member were to send me something from committee and himself outlining exactly what he's talking about so that I can get informed, so that I could therefore develop an opinion.

The Member had a very comprehensive Member's statement today which I think addressed many of the issues that are being faced by residents across the Northwest Territories, and I appreciate the content of that statement.

Poverty, as I think the Member has clearly articulated, is a very complex issue with many contributing factors, and there is no single solution. I think that goes to MLA Green's comment about how I always respond to poverty questions. At its most fundamental level, Mr. Speaker, the department priorities and planning in the health and social services are grounded on a population...

I don't think we are differing in our opinions around the broader scope of food security and the value of that as it supports health for residents across the Northwest Territories. As I said, we focus on encouraging people to live healthy lifestyles. We do that through our Healthy Family programs. We do that through the education that we are supporting in the Department of Education in the schools around healthy living, healthy eating, and the value of nutrition.

Mr. Speaker, in the information that we provide across the Northwest Territories when we are attending our health fairs or our...

There are a couple of different things that are happening. One, as an example, departmental staff attended an invitation-only event, We Belong, which is an international forum on life promotion to address Indigenous suicide, in November 2016, which was hosted by the Canadian Foundation for Health Care Improvement. We had an opportunity to go and learn and bring back some of the information from those and apply it to programs across the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, the department also continues to deliver on-the-land healing fund for mental health and addictions, which goes to different...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, before I get into the details, I just would like to point out that this was the first delivery of this model. There was some advertising for it, but clearly there wasn't enough. At this point, we are not panicked, but we do have to do some more communication. Mr. Speaker, the first delivery was January 30th. We had two people registered. Neither of them called in. At the end of the day, we had nobody call in to that group help line. As I said, we are not panicked yet, but we recognize we have to do some better communication to get that information out there...

In the last government, the government, in cooperation with NGOs, Aboriginal governments, community governments, and other stakeholders, put together an antipoverty framework. One of the things that has frustrated me about that important work, and it was important work and I appreciate all the work the stakeholders have put in, but it is something we hear time and time again. Number one, there is no evaluation criteria established for any of the work being done on addressing poverty in the Northwest Territories. Number two, there was no real agreedupon definition of what poverty is.

These are...