Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Regional Wellness Council members are a critical part of our health and social services system. They are change leaders in their communities and a voice for residents in their regions. They champion the ideas and concerns of residents and are passionate about using that information to shape and improve our health and social services.

Mr. Speaker, as Members know, we have six Regional Wellness Councils across the territory, representing the regions of Beaufort-Delta, Deh Cho, Fort Smith, Hay River, Sahtu, and Yellowknife. Each council has six members and a...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document entitled "2018 Annual Report, Public Utilities Board of the Northwest Territories." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We are always looking for opportunities to strengthen our response to these types of breaches, to make sure that they do not happen again. This one is very complex. There is lots of information out there, lots of conflicting information, and I think it's too early to presume we know what the findings are going to be. We are working closely with the Information and Privacy Commissioner. The Information and Privacy Commissioner, will likely be making a report on this, as well, and I look forward to discussing those findings with the Information and Privacy Commissioner, with committee, to make...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the breach was incredibly troubling. We take it very seriously. We have been working very closely with the Information and Privacy Commissioner, who actually has possession of those files that were found. We have attempted to reach out to all of the clients, but the records are quite old and some of the contact information on those records is not current, so we are trying to track down some individuals. As of February 21st, 69 individuals have been notified by the authority, by mail. As I said, the documents, some of them, are very old, so we have not been able...

We did release the oral health strategy here in the Northwest Territories, and the focus is on prevention rather than the actual provision of services, because the provision of services is the responsibility of private dentists and others. We do accept and we do agree with everything the Member said about the value of oral health and healthy gums, a healthy mouth leading to overall health. We do have the oral health strategy. There is a lot of focus on youth, as the Member has said.

However, with regard to oral health initiatives for the adult population, there are a number of action items...

Under medical travel, you are referred to the location within our system that has the services available closest. For some individuals, they would come into Inuvik. For some individuals, they might come into Hay River. For some individuals, they would come into Yellowknife.

For things like MRIs and many of our specialist appointments or surgeries, our relationship is with Alberta, so our referral pattern is into Alberta. We are working with a couple of our communities in the Deh Cho to create a relationship with northern BC, but for the most part, all of our referrals are to our partners in...

That is a very broad question. We know that in the Northwest Territories we do have some pretty great staff out there providing services, and many of our residents are getting timely and good care, but there are certainly residents who are raising issues. It is important for us to learn from those issues.

I would strongly encourage that the Member, and all Members, in fact, if they have a resident who has an issue with the care that they have received, please bring it forward to our quality assurance professionals so that they can review those situations and make recommendations to help us...

I know that the Member is aware, but just before I answer the on-the-land question, we are doing a number of things to try and help us control and reduce the wait times. One of the things that we are doing is actually providing child and youth counsellors across the territory, which has opened up a service that really doesn't exist for many of our youth today who are using the system as a whole. We are putting more positions in, and we are trying to create more resources for people.

Mr. Speaker, we have $1.23 million. The $5 million that the Member is referring to, I think, may be referring to...

Mr. Speaker, I believe I heard the Member correctly when he indicated eight-month wait times. If the Member is aware of somebody who is waiting eight months, we are trying to constantly improve, and I would strongly encourage the Member to seek consent from that individual so that they can approach us so we could find out what is going on in that particular file because, on average, three months in Yellowknife is what we are seeing for non-urgent issues.

Mr. Speaker, all community counselling programs with wait times or wait lists have an intervention plan in place to ensure that urgent clients...

No.