Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a couple of the FOXY peer leaders in the gallery today: Makenzie Zouboules, Coco Paulette and Brianna Shae. Thank you all for the amazing work you’ve done in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

The bill actually allows us the flexibility to roll in Hay River. Whether it’s all up front or whether we transition it over a time, the bill actually gives us the freedom to roll it in.

Yes.

Thank you. We provide training or, rather, we partner in training for individuals that are taking or interested in resident care. Its primary focus right now is on the facilities, but that training is something that certainly we can look at expanding to other individuals to provide that type of support in communities throughout the Northwest Territories. So, resident care as well as home support workers. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the large things we’re doing is actually the system transformation, which will allow us to focus our resources more appropriately than we have in the past. This will make an actual improvement in all areas of health and social services in the Northwest Territories, including the supports that we provide with home care. It will also ensure that we have a consistent approach for home care across the Northwest Territories. We also have partnerships with the NWT Seniors’ Society and we do provide them with a significant amount of money to run a number of different...

Any time the GNWT has worked with other governments or other bodies to bring staff into our employ, we have always been very, very conscious of these concerns and we’ve always worked really hard with those organizations, whether it’s the federal government or whether it was the Hay River Health Authority or five years ago or almost 10 years ago when we did the initial negotiations. We do our best and we will work with their union. Their union will want to protect their employees and we want to make sure the employees get a fair transition.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Bill 44 actually provides us with the flexibility to ensure the process for bringing Hay River health and social services staff into the public service can be coordinated in a manner that addresses the needs of both the GNWT, the UNW, Hay River Health and Social Services Authority and superann.

Mr. Speaker, it doesn’t seem to be in the right order here. That was something that was occurring. That’s one of the main reasons we’re doing a fundamental change in how we provide child and family services in the Northwest Territories. According to the Auditor General, there wasn’t enough accountability, so we actually made all the CEOs in all the authorities associate directors under the legislation, which has brought this to the forefront and made it a priority in every authority.

To the Member’s point, this is a priority; it is being dealt with; we are moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have one of those individuals in place. We have been recruiting for the other one without any success at this point, but I will certainly keep the Members informed as to when we’re finally able to successfully fill that position. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to recognize the Fostering Open Expression among Youth team, better known as FOXY, for receiving the $1 million Arctic Inspiration Prize.

The Arctic Inspiration Prize recognizes and promotes the extraordinary contribution made by teams in gathering Arctic knowledge and using this knowledge for real world applications. The prize is awarded by a selection committee, engaged partners and ambassadors. FOXY was nominated for this award by Premier Bob McLeod, with support from Minister Lafferty, Minister McLeod and myself. This year was the first time the entire prize had...