Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In keeping with the direction provided in 2010 which basically established that PWS would be responsible for providing operations and maintenance services to buildings owned and operated by the GNWT, eventually when the building is completed, the maintenance of the new facility, the boilers and structural maintenance will be done by Public Works and Services. We in Health and Social Services believe that there are a number of residual functions, maintenance functions that should be retained by the authority and by the health system, maintenance specific to technical...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that Bill 41, An Act to Amend the Partnership Act, be read for the third time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that Bill 47, An Act to Amend the Child and Family Services Act, be read for the first time.

We have been working on it. I can’t remember the exact date that we plan to have something available for the committee, but I will review my notes and talk to the department to get a concrete date for the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The pharmaceutical strategy isn’t completed at this point. We have had difficulty finding permanent pharmacy or a pharmacist to actually participate in this in the department and we have actually done some contract work with pharmacists to actually start moving on this. So it’s not done. We are continuing to move forward. I don’t anticipate the pharmaceutical strategy will be fully 100 percent concluded in the life of this government, but many of the components will be well on their way to being completed during the life of this government.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, that Bill 38, An Act to Amend the Jury Act, be read for the third time.

There are going to be many components of a pharmaceutical strategy and they don’t necessarily relate directly to the extended benefits that we provide at this time. Previously, Mr. Dolynny was talking about a catastrophic drug program for those large, expensive pharmaceutical treatments that we don’t provide support to now. Those will cover those for residents of the Northwest Territories who have incredibly high costs. We need to do the financial analysis, but many of those costs are hard to predict because many of these particular drugs or treatment programs are very rare or not used on a...

A pharmaceutical strategy and the research and analysis are two different things. We will have a lot of that information prepared during the life of this government, but the full rollout of a comprehensive pharmaceutical strategy will take a little bit longer.

The Program Review Office has been doing some analysis into the costs and the implementation of distribution of pharmaceuticals through the health care system and they’re going to continue to do that work. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With me on my left is Gary MacDougall, who is the director of legal registries and, on my right, Ian Rennie, who is legislative counsel responsible for this piece of legislation.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a few members of the Department of Health and Social Services here today with us in the gallery and I’d like to take this opportunity to recognize them: Yves Panneton, who is the manager of our primary community and acute care services and a chief nursing officer; Erin Currie, the senior nurse practitioner consultant; Carolan Bennett, the senior nursing consultant; as well as Peter Workman, the health emergency planner.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to recognize the chair of the Montessori Society here in Yellowknife, Dave Wasylciw, as well as the...