Julie Green

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you for the question. It is my understanding that we are still going to be able to vaccinate everyone by the end of March, but the composition of the shipments is going to change with less vaccine in February and more in March. At this time, we believe that everyone will be vaccinated within the 42-day limit, and if that is not the case, we will certainly communicate that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following 10 documents: "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 351-19(2): Addictions Treatment Services;" "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 406-19(2): Truth and Reconciliation Commission Call to Action Regarding Treatment Centres;" "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 407-19(2): Self-Isolation Exemptions;" "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 414-19(2): Stanton Territorial Sterilization of Equipment;" "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 415-19(2): Zoonotics;" "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 427-19(2): Addictions, "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question...

I recognize that people are really feeling COVID fatigue in the dark and the cold and that they are really looking forward to getting together with other members of their communities and their families, both within the NWT and outside of the NWT, and so I think the Chief Public Health Officer is aware of that, too. Ultimately, the decision about what phase we are in is up to her. She is the one who we have tasked with the public health assessment, and so I cannot make a commitment. However, I can certainly tell you that she has set some thresholds for enabling more gathering in the NWT and for...

I am proud to tell the Member that we have achieved all of those milestones.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I have a Return to Oral Question asked by the Member of Deh Cho on October 16, 2020, regarding long-term care facility.

The former health centre building in Fort Providence was deemed surplus by the department when the new health and social services centre was constructed. It was determined by Department of Health and Social Services and the Department of Infrastructure that the building had reached the end of its useful life from both a technical and program perspective. It would have been cost prohibitive to upgrade the facility and meet current healthcare design and...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I wish to table the following four documents: "NWT Health and Social Services System Annual Report 2019-2020;" "Tlicho Community Services Agency Health and Social Services Annual Report 2019-2020;" "2019-2020 Annual Report of the Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority;" and "Hay River Health and Social Services Authority Annual Report 2019-2020." Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I appreciate the Member's concern. It usually is a lot of traffic. The road to the mines is usually in the realm of 7,000 to 9,000 trucks a winter over a two-month period, so it is a very intense amount of traffic that will be coming right from the border through the South Slave up into the tundra. With respect to other truckers who deliver fuel to small communities on winter roads, I see the need to be vigilant there so that they don't unintentionally spread COVID-19 to those communities. I will be in touch with the Office of the Chief Public Health Officer to ensure that these issues are on...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you to the Member for Hay River South for the question. It's an excellent question, and I am sorry I don't have an answer ready to it. However, I do take his point that this is something we need to sort out now. That 30 hours would not be enough time into Colville Lake or to drive up to the diamond mines. There will need to be some consideration of how to make that possible since those are essential services and time-limited services that are being provided. Thank you.

This is a fairly new project, but we have offered and are still willing to provide the Standing Committee on Social Development a briefing and to take questions on what committee would like to see in an alcohol strategy. We are following an outline from the group called CAPE, which is the Canadian Alcohol Policy Evaluation. They have a number of different domains that they suggest an alcohol strategy focus on, so that is the outline we are looking at now. My preference would be to make this an iterative process so that there is more than one occasion on which the general public can be involved...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want the alcohol strategy to produce better health. We have some very troubling indicators for heavy alcohol use in this territory. For example, the rate of heavy drinking, which is defined as having four or five or more alcoholic beverages in a single sitting, is 43 percent in the NWT. That compares to 19 percent across Canada. Better health means that people are not falling into the poor health outcomes of excessive alcohol use and also not falling into the personal despair of excessive alcohol use. To that end, the department has hired a federally funded senior...