Glen Abernethy

Thanks to the Members, earlier in this Assembly we actually put $1.5 million, and some additional dollars as well, into the creation of new homecare positions throughout the Northwest Territories. We have struggled to fill all those positions, but those positions have been created. We are also moving forward with an initiative to support aging in place through family and paid community caregivers. We are getting ready to roll that pilot out as we speak. It should be out early in the new year. I also understand that we already have the CARE Mobility program in place, which is where homeowners...

As I have said before and I will say again, this government is committed to aging in place. Following up on the Member's statement, I agree with much of what the Member said as far as finding ways to keep our elders in their homes and their communities for as long as possible. I don't agree with all of his conclusions as a result of long-term care, but we are committed to aging in place.

With respect to the Housing Corporation, they are working on a senior housing initiative that will help them actually make the determination in this particular area. When it comes to homecare, every homecare...

Mr. Speaker, I attended a meeting with the leadership council in the spring, and one of the issues that the board members actually brought to my attention was that in our current setup there was no possibility for deputy chairs of the regional wellness council, which meant it was sometimes difficult to hold meetings. Two things have to happen. There has to be the chair, and there has, and there has to be quorum.

At that meeting, I actually directed that the Department of Health and Social Services work with the territorial authority to amend that so that we can actually have deputy chairs...

The regional wellness councils approve their agendas for every meeting, so there is an opportunity to make amendments. Typically, the meetings do not have activities to have sections for public input, but that does not mean they can't. So, if the regional wellness council wants to open the floor to take questions or comments, that is certainly something they could do on a one-up basis. I am not sure that it would occur on every agenda. It's really up to the regional wellness councils. We do not want to be too prescriptive on what they are discussing. We want to hear from them.

Having said that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to update Members on our government's recent work on cannabis public education and community health engagement.

Northerners have told us that they want more evidence-based, culturally relevant information on the health effects of cannabis. In response to that call, the Department of Health and Social Services has been working in partnership with other departments and agencies, as well as the federal government, to ensure that NWT residents have access to the information and resources that they need in order to make informed choices.

When it comes to...

Not everybody in every community, obviously, needs homecare. It's based on a referral system. If we do not have a home support worker in the community who can do that, there are other opportunities to have individuals like CHRs provide the support that they can and other nurses provide the support they can and other professionals that happen to be in the communities. It's not ideal. We have created these positions to provide a certain level of support.

In some cases, they may not be receiving the full scope that has been requested under their medical direction, but we are trying to fill these...

I am not sure that's exactly what I said. We created a large number of positions as a result of that budget, but not all of those resources were specifically for positions. When it comes to recruitment, we filled most of the positions, but, in some of our communities, we have gone out time and time again and we haven't had any success. I have had conversations with a couple of the MLAs about the challenges that we are facing in the regions, and we will be reaching out to leadership here shortly to find out if there is any opportunity to work with them to identify people in the communities who...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are moving forward with a pilot on that particular initiative, family and/or community caregivers. There are a number of different opportunities how this might roll out in the future. We want to test a couple of those, so we are going to be moving forward with a number of initiatives in different communities to test that exact principle. From there, we will be able to build a business case in whichever model seems to be the most effective so that we can build a business case to roll out at a territorial level. We are looking to go out in pilot on April...

It is my understanding that the Housing Corporation is actually working on that exact initiative to find ways to support homeowners who need to do retrofits to help individuals age in place. Related through Health and Social Services, we can have occupational therapists, when there is a referral, come into people's homes and help them with other supports to help support activities of daily living, to identify the types of grab bars and other things that might be valuable or alternatives to ramps and those types of things. So occupational therapy, upon referral, can go into communities to help...

Mr. Speaker, I am not off the top of my head aware of the specific retrofits that may have been conducted through programs available through the organizations like the Housing Corporation, but I'm happy to sit down with the Minister responsible and figure that out and get back to the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.