Glen Abernethy

There are a couple of things that need to happen. Obviously, we need to determine and quantify the cost of bringing the individuals into the public service. Specifically, what I mean by that is the cost of the pensions and the cost of ensuring those who are already receiving pensions through Hay River who have worked there over the many years are not adversely affected, but that the individuals coming into the new system, our system, with superannuation are not adversely affected or penalized as a result of the pension that they provided in the past. We've had discussions in here about the...

I just want to correct one of the Member's statements. This Cabinet is committed to bringing Hay River into the public service. It is one of our mandate items, and we are doing a significant amount of work to make that happen. It is a big task. It may not happen in the life of this government, but that does not mean that we are not doing important work today that is going to help make that happen in the future.

I did have an opportunity to meet with Mr. Willows. We did talk about the authority, and I have provided Mr. Willows with a mandate letter outlining his role, responsibilities, and...

I am not 100 per cent sure I understand the question, but I will do my best. At a territorial level, we do have some standards and standard protocols that we are putting in place at a territorial level, which all of the regional operations have to adhere to when it comes to things like plans of care and different things like that. In-house, there will be some local training, there will be some local policies and procedures that are put together by the staff of that authority. They obviously have to be consistent with the territorial policy and standards, but there is an opportunity to do some...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with the creation of the new Norman Wells long-term care facility, which I had the honour of visiting with the Member opposite for the grand opening, 37 positions were created the for this long-term care facility. Currently, as of today, we have 35 of those positions filled. We have one nursing clinical coordinator, seven LPNs, 12 resident care aides, three relief resident care aides, one clerk, one activity rehab aide, six-and-a-half housekeepers -- I am not sure how we have half a housekeeper -- one-and-a-half cooks, and three cooks' assistants. There are...

We use locums throughout our system on many different occasions, and we fund those locums through vacancies and through other unexpended salary dollars. We have brought in some audiology staff to provide some locums. We have also had some incredible difficulty finding people to come in and provide some of that backfill for us. We went for an extended period of time last year where we were actually unable to find somebody to provide that backfill. So I think there are some challenges at a national level to find individuals, but, yes, we absolutely use some unexpended dollars to provide locums...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, there are significant wait lists for audiology. We have actually done a number of things to try to reduce that wait list, and the Member has actually identified already that we have put in a third position in audiology. National levels are five audiologists per 100,000 people. We previously had two-and-a-half. Now, we have three, so we are slightly over that. Having said that, we still have significant wait lists.

I have asked the department to begin a review with the NWT Health and Social Services Authority, focusing on wait time and waiting list...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document entitled "2017-2018 Annual Report of the Director of Child and Family Services." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, as the lead on our response in Health and Social Services, I have asked the deputy to actually do a debrief with the other departments to make sure that we have learned from this experience. I think it went quite well, but there's always opportunity to learn from experiences, also how we might be able to utilize this experience for other similar incidents that may occur in different communities throughout the Northwest Territories.

It's not just Health and Social Services. MACA has a responsibility to work with communities on emergency responses to different crises that may befall...

It is still early days, but it is my understanding that we don't have a building that we could make available. We are certainly reaching out to other potential partners to see what might be available, and we are working with the Y as they are doing some of their outreach as well.

As far as the existing building, we do have to do some remediation on that site. We haven't figured out what rebuild plans, if any, there are for that particular site. We haven't, like I said, received an ask from the Y on some of their bridging plans or some of their other plans, but we are prepared to continue to...

We have certain processes within the Government of the Northwest Territories' budget planning and whatnot. I imagine largerterm solutions will have to follow that cycle, but we are trying to find some shortterm interim solutions with existing resources that we can actually implement during the 20182019 fiscal year. We are hoping that we will be able to finish that work, recognizing that that is part of the solution, and it will not be the comprehensive solution that will follow our normal processes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.