Julie Green

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think that what I can commit to is to learn more about the detail of this area and to consult with my colleague from ECE to sort out how we can handle these requests more efficiently so that parents have a clearer idea sooner in the day about where they stand accessing rehabilitation services. Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate the Member bringing this question forward. We recently reorganized speech language pathology to focus on more equitable service delivery for children in age birth to five years old. So we did that knowing that this is a critical period of a child's development and that there are considerable wait times for rehabilitation services, and we wanted to make sure that we could improve the turnaround time for these basic screening tools that practitioners use with this group. So equity is really our concern here, and the refocus of service in speech...

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Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a full analysis has not been done but there are some estimates. So cost due to hospitalizations due to shingles for NWT residents aged 50 plus, for 2009 to 2018, was $1.3 million. The cost for the vaccine product to immunize the entire NWT population for 50 plus is $1.91 million. And there's also a need for boosters with shingles, and the annual cost of that would be $165,000.

So as things stand now, it would cost us more to vaccinate than it would cost for hospitalizations. But that is a very mathematical answer. People who have shingles and I'm aware...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to provide a personal tribute to Harold R. Johnson, who died last month. Mr. Johnson was Cree from Montreal Lake First Nation in northern Saskatchewan. He straddled two worlds as a logger, trapper and miner but also as a Harvardeducated lawyer and writer. Above all he was a storyteller.

I met Mr. Johnson in May 2019 when I read his book, Firewater: How Alcohol is Killing my People and Yours.

He reflected on decades he spent as a Crown prosecutor witnessing the damage caused by alcohol abuse death, lifetransforming injuries, families disrupted...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, the department is interested in targeting the most high risk population, which is that 65 to 70yearold group. Also, people who are receiving active cancer treatment who are immune compromised. And the NHIB program offers an exception to the 65 to 70 age group. People can apply for coverage if they feel they can make a case for that with NHIB.

Having said all of that, I think that the Member's suggestion is a good one, that we provide a more targeted campaign to encourage uptake on the vaccine for the 65 to 70 group and for those who have benefits...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I recognize that shingles is a very painful condition for those who contract it and it can lead to significant health outcomes, as the Member said in his statement.

The rationale here is that the numbers of people in the NWT who require the shingles vaccine is relatively small compared to other vaccines that we would like to fund and don't have the money to fund at this point. In order to bring the vaccine to the whole 50 to 64yearold group, and then the EHB would cover it after that, we'd be looking for an investment of $2 million which is something...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I didn't review the information that was released, but I understand that it breached the privacy of the people about whom the information was collected and as a result of that breach of privacy, the matter was referred to the RCMP. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Member raising this issue so that I can provide some additional information.

The NWT Disabilities Council has been our partner in operating the day shelter and sobering centre for the last three years, since the centre opened in the fall of 2018. And they gave us notice on February the 24th that they did not want to take the sixmonth extension that we offered, and so they then went through the process of notifying their staff that they would be laid off.

The NTHSSA has already announced that they will be operating the day shelter and sobering centre from...