Julie Green

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think that what the Member is talking about is the contracting that GNWT does on behalf of Indigenous Services Canada for NIHB. And so we let those contracts and they are primarily for travel costs - they are for travel costs. The dentist needs to get approval from NIHB for the services provided. And in terms of the services that they do provide, as the Member knows there is a preapproval process, and the dentists make their own determination of what service is most required by the patient. That's not something that we have oversight over. Although I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the Member giving me notice on this so I could get that specific information. There are three dental therapists located in Fort Simpson, Fort McPherson, and Inuvik. There is a dental hygienist located in Fort Smith. There is a territorial specialist who is a licensed dental hygienist who provides frontline service to communities and is located in Yellowknife. And we also have dental hygienists who work on casual rotations to fill vacancies. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will certainly make a point of looking at the website agedout.com.

In terms of the Child and Family Services Act, we have received recommendations from the Member and from the social development committee. I'm not in a position to make a commitment that binds the 20th Assembly to what will be in the revision of the Child and Family Services Act. But, of course, we will be doing a transition document and I can include it in that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question. I remember the Member's statement, and I wanted to localize the number of youth who have applied for support services agreements related to their housing situation. In 2021, that was 18 youth who applied for that out of a total of 68 youth who were in that program.

What I want to say is that as the Member may remember, the child and family services action plan is currently bridging between two plans but the new plan, which will be publicly released in August, will have a dedicated focus on youth supports as you might expect. And as...

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one of the things that we will be doing is to minimize the amount of administration that goes with this money, since it is such a small amount, that we don't want to turn ourselves inside out for it, we already report a number of important statistics to CIHI, which are readily available to the public, on things like wait times, life expectancy, emergency room visits, and so on and so forth. So the amount of money we're receiving is going to not address any of the big problems that our health system faces but rather addresses some incremental problems...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question. The total increase in health spending for this year from the Government of Canada was $12 million. $12 million. Our budget in the Department of Health and Social Services is $610 million for this year. You can appreciate we were a little underwhelmed. So after being offered $7 million a year for ten years for tailored bilaterals, $2 million for the Canada health transfer one time top up for emergency room and pediatric hospitals, and $2.9 million of incremental funding for the territorial health investment fund, the Premier...

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question. Without knowing what the programming looks like, it's hard for me to comment on what an ideal location would be. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Trailcross home for teenagers closed in October of last year because there was a very low attendance rate, and it was no longer worth having an entire building. So the youth were accommodated in therapeutic foster homes and the building since has been evaluated as suitable for use. The system that the Department of Health and Social Services uses is that they go over their programming and decide whether there's programming for the building, and if there is no programming that fits within the building then they will surplus it to infrastructure.

So the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for that. Each region has a regional wellness council with seven members, and they meet every other month or four times a year, and they provide direct feedback to the leadership council of the NTHSSA on what the health needs, gaps, and priorities are in their regions. So that organization, the leadership council, meets four times a year with the chairs of each of the regional wellness councils, and I meet with them every time they meet in order to hear directly from them about what their needs and priorities are. So that's our method for...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is not program specific funding. There are four areas that the tailored bilaterals cover, and the spending has to be tied to health outcomes that are measured by the Canadian Institute for Health Information. There's some work going on now trying to standardize that reporting because not all jurisdictions collect the same information, and in some cases the collecting of the information is more onerous than the value of the contribution. So there's there's some work going on in that. But generally, what I recall is there is a home and community care...