Glen Abernethy

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...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there are a couple of things happening. The first thing that we are doing is we are looking forward to putting regulations in. We are almost done getting those regulations ready to go for the sale and distribution of low-risk foods, so that is things like vegetables and other things that can be grown, potatoes, this, that, and the other. If those items are going to be sold by local producers, we need to make sure that the food is inspected, the food is safe, and that it is meeting certain criteria. Those would be outlining the regulations.

To operationalize that...

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...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I am going to have to review Hansard. I don't recall actually discussing these types of positions providing audio or vision. Did the Member say vision testing? I'm not sure where that came from. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's not something that our home support workers or our resident care aides or our CHRs do at this point. CHRs do provide education. They do go out and meet residents and provide health education, health promotion, but they are not qualified to do hearing tests or visual tests. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our responsibility is to provide healthcare to the residents of the Northwest Territories. Yes, many residents do have to travel to Yellowknife or other locations to receive their care. Through medical travel, we book our flights on scheduled flights. We work with our residents to make sure that they know the information. The Member is right. From time to time, there are cancellations of flights. We do live in the Northwest Territories, where we do have adverse weather and other things that affect us.

We don't track the cancelled flights, Mr. Speaker, but we...

No, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the RFP for that work has just been released. The intention is for a review to be done of the scope and needs across this territory, in comparison to what we currently have, so that we can have some informed discussions about where future, if any, resources need to be employed to meet homecare needs in the Northwest Territories. So the RFP has just been released. Thank you, Mr. Chair.