Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I already made a commitment to move forward with exploring a Managed Alcohol Program in the sobering centre, but I indicated that we wouldn't even explore that until the sobering centre had been open a year, which would give us an opportunity to sort of get our feet wet, figure out how things are working, maximize or make sure that we are as efficient as possible before we start exploring that. Now, I do know that we did open our first sobering centre in July, but we haven't really gotten into our sobering centre per se. It will still be a number of months...

The Member is right. I mean, we all need to work together to help people make productive choices and understand the impacts of their actions, and drinking alcohol while pregnant is certainly a problem. There is money being spent on that which should be spent on healthy choices for the mother while she is pregnant, healthy eating, healthy living.

I'm certainly prepared to sit down with the Member and get a better, clear understanding of exactly what he's asking and figure out how as an Assembly we can work to help people understand the impacts, including the costs, the impacts, of consuming...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I am pretty sure we are talking about the same thing, using a different word. We are talking about the resident being able to block their record from being seen by certain individuals within this healthcare system, including certain specific information.

The initial system, as designed, didn't really have that available, but we have been working with the developers to see how we can incorporate that in, and we believe there is a mechanism. We are not 100 per cent sure. I may come back and say I was wrong, but at this point we believe that it is something we can...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this is as a base adjustment to the budget, so you won't see these dollars showing up in future years. The role of the recruitment of physicians is also going to be part of the territorial health authority, so you probably won't see it specifically. We are comfortable right now with the changes we have made and the improvements we have seen that we will be able to control our spending in this area a little bit better than we have in the past, and we do not feel we need this $900,000 at this point. Should things radically change, we will certainly be prepared to...

I understand that some of the issues, according to the Member, might have been something other than weather, but I would like to point out that the beautiful Northwest Territories is 1.1 million square kilometres of land and 33 communities ranging from the Beaufort Delta to Fort Smith, including Yellowknife. I've been in Yellowknife on one of the most beautiful days and talked my friend up in Inuvik who had 40 below weather, blizzard, and no flights for landing. It is possible to have good weather in one location and bad weather in another location.

With respect to the Member's question, we do...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the bulk of the money for the agricultural strategy and the positions that are being created is on page 178. There is $50,000 that appears in this section, but it's mostly for some of the contract work we're doing up front to get the work done to make this go live. So it's for subcontracting services that we have. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we did have a $2.5 million dollar investment in the last Assembly, which is base funding and has resulted in the creation of a 11.5 -- I think it's 11.5; it might just be 11 -- 11.5 or 11 home support positions across the Northwest Territories.

We do have a continuing care action plan that includes a number of activities that we are undertaking to support aging in place and help our residents stay in their homes for as long as possible. It isn't just home support workers, but it is pilots like the community caregivers, family care pilots that were working. There...

That is my hope and expectation, yes.

Similar to my last response, when it comes to educating mothers or expectant mothers, even mothers from small communities, we do rely on our health practitioners, community health nurses, or doctors to help share that information with them and make them aware.

Mr. Speaker, as one of the western and northern provinces and territories, we sit on a national FASD network. We work with the Canadian FASD Network, which does a significant amount of research, and they've put together a lot of really solid materials on the harms of drinking while pregnant.

This information is available to our staff and...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I don't mean to be a doom-and-gloom kind of guy, but as we get more of our people trained and fully up to speed on the Health Information Act, a couple of different things could happen. One of the things that could happen is our staff might be more aware of some of the things or breaches that have been occurring in the past. If they are identified, I hope they are reported to the Privacy Commissioner. There is a chance that as people become more educated, they might be aware that breaches have been occurring. They are reported. We fix them. It is conceivable...