Glen Abernethy

I can’t say when those negotiations will begin, but they certainly will not begin until we have concluded all the other collective bargaining negotiations that are underway, because as I said, it’s often the same people. As far as the pension costing, we are continuing to do that work. It isn’t simple. Superann has a lot of questions. They have a lot of concerns. We need to ensure that whatever happens is fair and reasonable. We don’t know what the cost on the individual basis might be. We certainly don’t want our employees, the employees of Hay River to be in a worse position. We want to make...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. After you turned the page, I clearly forget everything I was discussing on the previous page… No. I’m just kidding. I totally remember the question. The government, as a result of the Minister’s Forum on Addictions, we actually came forward with funding to support ontheland programs. We provide that money to the different Aboriginal governments, regional governments here, in the Northwest Territories. We recognize that, although we have some clinical expertise, when it comes to ontheland programming, those programs should really be delivered by the people in the regions...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, late in the life of the last government, we brought in the new Mental Health Act which is going to go live, I believe in January. Part of the act is the implementation and utilization of something we call assisted community treatment. These positions are going to help us bring that to reality to help provide services that are outlined under the new legislation that didn’t exist under the old legislation.

We believe this is a significant step to move forward to providing better mental health services across the Northwest Territories. These positions, at least one...

Still not 100 per cent sure I understand the question, Mr. Chair. Under the legislation there will be board chairs for each of the regional wellness councils. Those board chairs are going to form the territorial authority, there is one authority. Other members will form regional wellness councils. In the legislation it allows us to basically keep Hay River as they are until such time as we roll them in. As a result, there will be a public administrator who is technically acting in the capacity of chair of the regional wellness council that we’ve established in Hay River, but will still...

Thank you. Mr. Chair, with respect to some of our legal documents, such as our birth certificate, although we had an obligation under the Official Languages Act, our documents only recognize the Roman alphabet in the production of those documents. There was an official languages review done by the official languages commissioner that indicated that it would be appropriate, given that we have an Official Languages Act here, in the Northwest Territories, that our legal documents could include all of the official languages and utilize the appropriate fonts. I have asked the department to move...

Yes, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it’s important to remind everybody that one of the reasons to go to a single authority is to make sure that individuals have an opportunity to influence care where they’re going to receive care and ensure that services are custom tailored to meet their communities’ realities.

On a bigpicture scheme, as long as they have representation, it’s filtered enough through regional chairs to the territorial level of the voices going to have impact. However, as I indicated, we did have conversations with leadership at K’atlodeeche and they indicated they’d like to be on Hay...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, actually, a report was prepared late in the life of the, or halfway through the life of the last government. It was certainly, I believe we tabled it here, in the Legislature. Following up with the recommendations under that, we are still providing dollars for things like Mental Health First Aid, ASSIST, and other suicide prevention and support programs for youth across the Northwest Territories. To that end, we’re also taking what we learned through that report as well as the Minister’s Forum on Mental Health and Addiction to develop a new framework for mental...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. What positions specifically?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I’ve committed to providing the Standing Committee on Social Programs or Social Development, or whatever it’s called today, sorry, a comprehensive briefing on health transformation, at which point we’ll be describing this. But in short, and we will certainly go into more detail, some of the changes that we’re seeing are a result of an audit that was done by the Auditor General of Canada that said basically our system lacks all accountability and that there is no real solid reporting mechanisms, just streams. The board reports directly to the Minister. The...