Julie Green

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. June is Seniors Month, a time for us to recognize the important role of seniors in our families, communities, and the territory. They connect us with language, land, and culture, and bridge the past with the future.

Under the mandate of the Government of the Northwest Territories 20192023, we are supporting this role by enabling seniors to age in place with dignity. We want to help seniors to remain at home for as long as they are able. In order to be successful, we must address the core issues. We collaborated across government and engaged seniors, their families and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have any information about what other jurisdictions do. I can certainly commit the resources to see what Alberta does as our closest neighbour. There is no path forward for this service unless the health budget is increased. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you for the questions. We have no plan to hire psychologists. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it is time to revise the Child and Family Services Act to bring it into alignment with Bill 92, the federal act respecting First Nations, Inuit, and Metis children and families, youth and families. This will align things that are already being done in terms of cultural safety. And so while the legislation has not come up for review in this session, the changes have been made in standards. And it's worth noting as well that we have a limited number of staff to do this policy and legislation work and the staff who would normally be involved in revising the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As of May 30th this year, there are 133 children and youth in temporary or permanent custody. That compares to 169 children and youth in temporary or permanent custody on September 1st, 2018. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I see Ed Hoff in the gallery today. He is a neighbour, a retired engineer, and a solid community volunteer, and I'd like to welcome him to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you for the question. I think the first thing that we need to do is meet the benchmark of two visits to each school each year. That would be a great start. We have had real trouble recruiting both dentists and dental hygienists in the Northwest Territories. And we have, of course, not given up on doing that but when we put out the requests for proposal in March, we got zero results. And the result is of that is that we are severely underserved by dental health specialists, and that's across the board. And I know that people can go to their health centre and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for that additional information. I don't know if any of these therapists are ones who were trained in Fort Smith. I would hope that they would have retired by now but, you know, you never know. So, we have staff assigned to go to communities that don't have therapists or hygienists twice a school year. That's the benchmark of service. Sometimes, I will say upfront, we don't meet that because of staffing and travelrelated issues and school cancellations. But that's what our benchmark is.

Last year the Beaufort Delta and Sahtu regions did not...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that would be a great topic to bring up with the 20th Assembly who will be doing the next business plan for the 20242025 fiscal year. I think that some of this is a coordination effort. I know that Home Base Yellowknife does enable people to get into leases with landlords and sets youth up in their own housing. I'm not sure whether there is enough of that to make a difference. I think that some youth need significant wraparound resources to be successful as tenants. And so I think all of those are very worthy of consideration. I think for youth as...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our concern is for youth who have some interaction with child and family services. I think the youth homelessness issue is bigger than that, and it does require a number of parties to come to the table to try and understand the scope of the problem and what the solutions are. I know that there are some resources available now. I'm not familiar with where the gaps are, but that is something that would obviously be useful not only here in Yellowknife, with the largest homelessness population, but in other regional centres. Thank you.