Julie Green

This area has not received the attention it deserves, primarily because it has coincided with the pandemic, and federal and territorial resources have been focused on that. However, the Member may recall that, in October 2020, the federal Speech from the Throne invited provinces and territories to participate in federal, provincial, and territorial discussions on a national strategy for high-cost drugs for rare diseases, and in fact, the NWT has been participating in that dialogue. There is a public engagement going on now on high-cost drugs for rare diseases, and it continues until March 26th...

This legislation, if it does, in fact, pass through the House of Commons this week, represents a real game-changer toward prescription medications for people in the NWT. Only about 50 percent of our population has pharmacy and medication coverage, so this would take in a lot of people who are currently left out. However, there is a lot of fine print that needs to be negotiated between the federal government and the provincial and territorial governments. Obviously, pharmacare would be a national initiative but implemented by provinces and territories, so there is a lot of detail that needs to...

I am looking forward to the Member inviting me to drive down the Dempster to Whitehorse. I've never had the pleasure of doing that. The thing about travel restrictions is that we can only control our own border. The Yukon can put whatever conditions in place they feel they need. We put our conditions in place to meet our own circumstances. It's not as easy as just throwing the border open and saying, "Look, it's all going to be good." The Yukon needs to decide that it is good for them. I recognize the Member's passion for this, that she would like this corridor to open as soon as possible. I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can't say I'm surprised by that question. I knew, as soon as that news release came out, the Delta crowd would want to know about getting to the Yukon. What I can say is that those discussions are not happening at my level. I am aware that the people in the Delta would like to be able to travel to and from the Yukon without the two-week isolation, and I am also aware that the situation is different now because Yukon has its own isolation protocol. It doesn't have the open border that it had before Christmas. What I can commit is that I will raise it with the CPHO at...

As I say, the department has been funding the NWT Seniors' Society to provide these workshops, and those are ongoing. I have to tell you that elder abuse is like intimate partner violence in that the victims are often shamed, not willing to come forward to say that they have been taken advantage of. It can be difficult to have victims of violence come forward and say that they are, in fact, victims of violence, let alone to then reach out for help. One of the things that we've been doing with our health staff is to train them to look for signs of elder abuse and to support seniors and elders...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Elder abuse is a real and frightening problem in our territory. We are very concerned about it; all of us are concerned about it. What to do about it is not as easy as putting money into a program. It is a set of attitudes that people have towards elders, in which they are neglected and exploited, as the Member said in his statement. We have been having discussions about whether we could strengthen our regulatory environment around elder abuse so there are real consequences for failing to protect elders and for taking advantage of them. At the moment, what we're doing...

As I mentioned before, the Cabinet does support a national pharmacare program represented in this case by Bill C-213. I am not aware about what conversations have happened with the MP about this bill. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, yes.

It's my understanding that having a fully vaccinated population, or an almost fully vaccinated population, on both sides of the border would be very helpful in this situation. I am aware that Yukon has a similar number of doses available as we do with the same kind of timing and goals for vaccination, so I think that that will be useful in making the case to make free travel available between the two jurisdictions. This is a live issue. We hope to have all of our vaccine rolled out by the end of March, so I'm hoping to be able to ask the CPHO, as I mentioned, this week and have the good news...

We are currently looking at ways to strenghten after-care, as you know. We've just started with our survey of people who have used our services to find out how well it worked, what else could be done. This is something we will certainly put into the consideration. It is a serious commitment of our mandate, to improve after-care services, and this is a potentially promising way of doing that.