Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to congratulate the NWT Montessori Society on their 40th anniversary. The society has been part of the Great Slave riding for many years, delivering a high quality Montessori Casa preschool program from the society’s location on 52nd Street.

Yesterday the society celebrated their 40th anniversary with festivities at their downtown and N.J. MacPherson locations. Students were treated to a surprise visit from a mock Maria Montessori, founder of the Montessori method, collected material from a time capsule and enjoyed a reception with cake and fruit.

The...

Thank you. I appreciate the comment, and we’re working with our partners, including the different French associations here in the Northwest Territories as we move forward.

Should this legislation be passed, it will take a bit of time, six to 12 months to roll it out. But to ensure that we are still able to provide French juries here in the Northwest Territories, we have agreements with three different provinces that will allow us to hold French jury trials in their jurisdictions until such time as we get our stuff in place in six to 12 months.

Now, as I’ve indicated, it is rare that this...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With me today are Emily Ingarfield, the manager of policy and planning on my left; and Kelly McLaughlin, director of legislation on my right.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be here today to speak about Bill 38, An Act to Amend the Jury Act.

The main focus of the amendments to the Jury Act is to permit the Department of Justice to develop regulations that will allow French-speaking residents of Yellowknife to be effectively identified for inclusion on a specialized French jury list. There are also a number of minor amendments, including one that will add Public Prosecution Service of Canada employees to the list of persons exempted from jury service. Another amendment will repeal the provision of the act that references fees...

The act may not focus specifically on grandparents and elders or other family members, but the actual application of building stronger families moving forward is focused on the families. It is focused on providing supports to the families in situations of neglect to help those families find the solutions to the root causes of that neglect. Therefore, we’ll be able to keep the children in our communities, in our regions and in their homes for as long as possible, hopefully, until they’re ready to go off to college or university.

This is the direction we’re taking, and like I said, I’m happy to...

Research has shown that in the Northwest Territories the vast majority of apprehensions that have existed to date have resulted as a result of neglect, as opposed to abuse, which is one of the reasons we’re going to a completely differential response of dealing with children in those abuse situations.

The new approach is supporting families, finding ways to support families so that we can actually keep the children with the families. If they do need counseling, if they need all these other types of supports, we’re going to be there to work with them to find solutions.

When it’s abuse, we still...

I guess that would depend on the definition of trouble. Health professionals are a hard-to-recruit position. We continue to recruit on a regular basis, but for many of the allied health professions there is high turnover. We’re actually putting into force a strategic plan, a Health Human Resource Strategic Plan that is going to put in a number of mechanisms and tools to help us recruit and retain health professionals across the Northwest Territories. But we keep at it, we keep staffing, we keep filling, but turnover is a reality that we do have to work with.

Unless anything has changed in the last little while, my last update was that we actually did manage to get a permanent physician into Hay River. I will check with the department to confirm that. But the reality of being outside of the public service hasn’t interfered with this medical process in obtaining physicians.

Resolving this particular challenge here in the Northwest Territories is going to take partnership and awareness, and one of the main organizations that do incredible work in this area is the NWT Seniors’ Society. We do currently provide funding to the NWT Seniors’ Society to offer a toll-free line to seniors with a significant amount of information, including who they might be able to call if they are witnessing things like senior or elder abuse. We can certainly have a conversation with them to see if and how that can be expanded. But at the same time, if you see or happen to witness abuse...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was actually recently invited to a meeting of the NWT Network to Prevent Abuse of Older Adults held here in Yellowknife on February 10, 2015, where the NWT Seniors’ Society was providing that workshop. At that time I was again asked about possible legislation, and I have already directed the department to do some research into the duty to report but also other opportunities that may exist that will make it necessary for individuals to report abuse.

I will say that, I mean, all of us as citizens have an obligation, in my mind, to report violence when we see it, whether...