Statements in Debates
Thank you, Madam Chair. I didn’t have that memorized off the top of my head, but I conveniently had that information available, but I’ve got eight binders here so it was a little hard to find it.
The Health and Social Services department has $1.073 million dedicated to anti-poverty funding. In total the government has $2.6 million going towards anti-poverty. Within the Department of Health and Social Services, we have $200,000 under the Healthy Food for children and youth. We’re providing food vouchers for families in need through the Healthy Family and Collective Kitchens Program. So that’s...
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This was certainly a big issue in the 16th Assembly and it’s something that needs to be done. What I have committed to is we will do work on this, but we need to complete a few of our other priorities and make some human resource room to actually conduct the work. If everything is being done on the side of a desk, nothing gets done, and there is a significant amount of good work that we’re doing in the department to improve services to our residents. This does need to be done, but it’s a lower priority for us at this time. But we will continue to research and gather data...
I would, Madam Chair.
I agree with everything the Member has just said with respect to the provision of services and how consistency is certainly the more preferred approach. We continue to have challenges hiring health professionals in the Northwest Territories, especially in some of the smaller communities. We are doing better in some areas than others, but we are still having challenges. This is true for mental health and addictions counsellors as well as community health nurses. I don’t have the exact status of Fort Liard, but I’d be happy to get that for the Member and share that with the Member.
As we move...
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just for some clarity, there is a reference to this, in this motion, to $468,000 which I believe is the $468,000 that was identified in 8-39. Just for clarity purpose, the dollars that are there came from the federal government, and not the entire $468,000 were actually NWT dollars.
We had, out of that $498,000, when you combine the $468,000 and the $30,000 the year before, we had $198,000 of that and then $50,000 of that available to the Northwest Territories. Of that amount, $144,000 had to go to Nunavut and $105,000 had to go to the Yukon. One of the reasons the federal...
I appreciate the Member’s passion for wellness courts and it’s something that I obviously support as well. But at the end of the day, a wellness court is dependent on the support of the judiciary, so we obviously have to make sure that the judiciary are comfortable with the programs and services that we provide.
There is significant money going into the wellness court in ’14-15. Eight hundred seven thousand dollars has been identified within the Department of Justice budget. It is in the Department of Justice budget but it is a collaborative effort and it’s taking the activities and the work of...
Thank you, Madam Chair. Water quality tests are required under the Water Supply System Regulations and the chief public health officer requires that the following water quality testing for treated water, so we do test drinking water on a regular basis. As far as public waters, we work with I believe it’s MACA who has the lead on sampling rivers and lakes. ENR. Sorry, ENR has the lead on that.
I have already committed to doing that and I agree with what the Member says, we clearly need to have a plan.
One of the things that we do know is that every individual is different and every individual has different needs and expectations. That’s why one of the reasons we put in a variety of different treatment options for individuals from on-the land programs and hopefully we’ll be moving forward and have some success with mobile treatment options as well as facilities. The bottom line is supports will vary depending on the client’s individual needs and arrangement that have been made with that client prior to going down for treatment. So, individually we can have custom plans to have regular...
We’re just trying to dig the specific details out of the binder. We will provide the specific details to the Member so that they have a better accounting, but by way of example, at Stanton most of the positions are located in Yellowknife and a significant number of those or a couple of those are accounted for through the Med-Response unit that we’re putting in as well as some other health professionals. Within Yellowknife Health and Social Services, the increase is about 13 and those are EMR. I’ll go to Director Mathison because I don’t understand.