Glen Abernethy

Mr. Speaker, I have mentioned it before. We are working on a continuing care services action plan, which is helping us to quantify the needs and demands out there for things like home care and other supports that we can be providing for our seniors. We hope to have that action plan done by the end of this fiscal year, at which point I will be coming to committee to have some discussions on the plan itself and how we can work together to roll that plan out and make sure that we are meeting the broad range of needs of seniors across this territory.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The budget for the planning study is in Public Works and Services. We have been working on this project for a number of years. We had obviously hoped to have this moved forward previously but we had more difficulty gaining community acceptance of the parcel of land that would be utilized for the new health centre. It took longer than anticipated, which obviously delayed our ability to do a planning study. You can't do the planning study until you have the land because, if you're talking about design, build, how the facility is going to look, what programs you're going to...

Mr. Speaker, one of the commitments the Government of the Northwest Territories has made for investing in early childhood development includes improving access to and outcomes of early intervention services by continuing pilot projects in the Deh Cho, Tlicho and Beaufort Delta regions. I am pleased to report that the three early childhood development intervention pilot projects established as part of the GNWT’s Framework and Action Plan for Early Childhood Development are well underway.

These pilots will contribute new knowledge about regional and community-based early childhood development...

No variance, Mr. Chair.

Yes, it is, Mr. Chair.

Yes, please.

Mr. Speaker, we just recently renewed the contract for the day shelter in its current location. I have made a commitment to move the day shelter to a different location recognizing the public outcry against its current location but we had to renew the contract because we haven't actually been able to find another location. We're prepared to move it as soon as we find another more suitable location for the day shelter.

However, on top of that, we have also moved forward with expanding the hours; it's now a 12-hour a day from seven to seven. That should happen in the next couple of months, we're...

We haven't done too much in the way of getting that information out there at this point because we haven't actually had any budget approved indicating that we can actually, you know, conclude or move forward, and we haven't got a fully formulated plan on putting in long-term care or any of those types of things in that facility, and we're working on a development of a plan to accommodate 258 beds in the Northwest Territories and we're pursuing lots of different options and research that'll allow us to support the 250 beds across the Northwest Territories. It's many pieces of the puzzle until...

Mr. Speaker, in the design, we're looking at both options, and we haven't yet come to a conclusion, but we are exploring, basically, all the options to move this initiative forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the old Stanton facility will be managed by Venture, I believe is the name of the company, as part of the P3 Project. They're the property manager. They are ultimately the ones who get to decide what they're going to put and what they're not going to put in that facility. We have sought permission from FMB and we're seeking permission from the Members today to re-profile some of the extended care dollars and pursue an opportunity to put the 18 extended beds that we were going to build in the old building.

So we can to make a case to Venture that that would be a...