Community counselling is a key community-level component of the continuum of mental health and addictions treatment. We have, as I’ve indicated, community counsellors in 19 of the communities in all the regions of the Northwest Territories, and where we don't have them in individual communities, we do have telephone counselling and fly-in services that are available. We want to continue to provide these services. We have actually developed new guidelines that our community counsellors can use when assessing and providing treatment, and when individuals are in immediate or crisis situations, we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member, when he was actually the Minister of Health and Social Services, conducted the Minister's Forum on Mental Health and Addictions, which I think was a very important process. The forum went out and talked to residents across the Northwest Territories and got their feedback on what they wanted to see when it came to mental health and addiction treatment here in the Northwest Territories, so I do applaud the Member for his leadership in that area. The number one, best solution? There isn't one. What we heard clearly from the forum is that different...

The CEOs are always trying to balance off staff resources with community needs to deliver the best services possible to all the residents of the Northwest Territories at a community level. The walk-in process in Fort Simpson was not found to be effective. With low volumes of patients coming into the clinic in the morning and high volumes of patients showing up in late afternoon, this actually led to long wait times for patients, and then limited the amount of time with each patient, and mostly they were only able to address specific issues when an individual came in given the limited time.

The...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the department's mandate and duties are outlined clearly in the Health and Social Services Establishment Policy very broadly. The department plays a coordinating and policy role, which includes setting standards and policies, providing subject-matter expertise, flowing funding, setting reporting requirements, and monitoring for compliance. The department has some direct program areas that their responsible for as well, the vital stats, as well as health insurance. Authorities are the delivery agents of the Health and Social Services System and their role is...

I think we're saying the same thing. We both believe this is a priority and we want to continue to move forward, but we have to do it light of the fiscal realities that we're facing. I've committed to doing the review once we move to a single authority, and to having continued discussions on this particular topic during business planning.

We want the same thing. We just have to find a way of getting there.

Once we move into a single authority I'd be happy to work with committee on that to determine the scope and nature, and how we can actually work to improve the process of providing funding to the shelters.

The Department of Justice is leading some work on collaborative services across the Northwest Territories where all the departments can work together. As an example, with Wellness Courts, our staff are available to do individual case planning with individuals who are going through the Wellness Courts. As well, individuals who are leaving the corrections facilities, also have access to probation officers who have a pretty decent relationship in most cases with some of the social services programs that exist. A lot of it is on a one-off basis, but on a bigger scale, the departments are working...

If we are talking specifically about individuals that are coming back from a treatment program, whether it's in the South or whether it's one of the on-the-land programs, one of the requirements to participate or to utilize one of our treatment facilities in the south is that the individual actually has appointments set up with community counsellors when they return to the Northwest Territories. We have community counsellors in 19 of the 33 communities in the Northwest Territories, and where we don't have counsellors, we have access by phone or other sources. Everybody is required to have a...

Quality assurance and constant monitoring of our systems and the programs that are being delivered is critical, and to that end, I once again encourage the Member, and all Members, to encourage your staff to engage with the quality assurance staff in each of the authorities when they have a constituent who has an issue. This will allow them to do a review of the incident and try to determine what happened and what can be improved. Having said that, the department does occasionally conduct quality reviews and other audits of the regional authorities. I'm certainly happy to sit down and share...

Originally the pilot was only intended to last one year, with the intent, as I said, to see whether or not this level of position could do the patient watches. There was some turnover in the department as a result, or rather in the authority as a result. The pilot was extended so that they could review to see if it was actually providing or meeting the intent. At the end of the day, security was still required in those units to provide those patient watches, and since then, we have actually enhanced the security levels within Stanton so that these positions are actually no longer required. The...