Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and as I said during the public hearing, the Department of Health and Social Services is not the expert on languages or fonts. Education, Culture and Employment certainly has a lot more of knowledge and awareness in this area. I do know that fonts are available. They exist in different formats and databases that are used across the Northwest Territories by different groups of bodies, and there are keyboards with different fonts on them. So, you know, I imagine fonts can be used in many, many different avenues other than just birth certificates. But for us, if someone's...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this bill will allow us to use traditional fonts, but the place names are legal name. We will be using the official place names or official community names. If those community names include traditional fonts, then certainly those will be on the birth certificate.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With me on my left is Ken Chutskoff, the legislative counsel, and on my left, Debbie DeLancey, deputy minister, Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm here to present Bill 5, An Act to Amend the Vital Statistics Act. The bill makes a number of amendments to the Vital Statistics Act. The Vital Statistics Act has been in force since 2013 and these are the first amendments to the act. Societal attitudes to transgender people are changing and it's also a time of reconciliation with Aboriginal people. The amendment to remove the requirement for gender reassignment surgery from the act brings the Northwest Territories in line with human rights decisions and progress in other provinces and territories.

Proof of completed...

Mr. Speaker, by design the Safe Advantage program has a review that is done every five years. They had a review done a number of years ago after the first five years was completed that talked about the value of supports and resulted in some changes. There will be another review in a couple years, at which point they'll be able to assess whether or not the Safe Advantage program is meeting its needs to drive down costs for all employers across the Northwest Territories. I look forward to seeing that review. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the Member's statement that they're more interested in claims costs or premiums is completely off base. The corporation, the WSCC, is focused on safety. As I indicated, the vast majority of claims costs are coming from large businesses. The WSCC absolutely, without question, recognizes the value of small businesses and is working hard to help small businesses reduce their overall costs. Recently they put in a program and hired an employee who can sit down with small businesses, at no cost, to help them develop their safety plans, their safety programs.

This is a way to actually...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd love to say yes, but I can't, obviously. There are a lot of adults out there who were never diagnosed and we don't have the clinical diagnosis for them, so there probably are individuals who are FASD who have never been accurately diagnosed.

I could get some information for the Member on the number that have been diagnosed through the Stanton program so that we have some current numbers, but there isn't a real solid set of information out there on the exact numbers that would exist in the Northwest Territories. But I will provide what I can to the Members across the...

Just to be clear, we will put the legal registered name of a community on birth certificates, so if it has font we'll make sure that happens. If it does not have font in the legal registered name then it won't obviously. Going live on this particular component of this legislation, we talked about this at length at the hearing. There is a significant amount of work that needs to be done in order to make sure that we are not putting residents of the Northwest Territories in harm's way by limiting their ability to get passports, social insurance numbers.

Also eliminating their ability to travel...

Mr. Speaker, across the Government of the Northwest Territories there's a wide range of programs and services available for children living with disabilities. Specifically related to FASD, the Stanton Territorial Hospital Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Family and Community Support Program has been established and it basically conducts diagnostic clinics to screen and diagnose FASD in children between the ages of seven and 17.

This team consists of doctors, psychologists, occupational therapists and other speech language therapists who can work with these children and help identify their...

Once this passes and comes into effect, we'll be able to put any of the supported or any of the information in the appropriate fonts. If the registered name of community does not include a font, it will not include it on the birth certificate.