Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m sure the Member wants me to be brief, so I’m going to try to be brief. The Member is right that we spent $2 million at Nats’ejee K’eh but we also spent $6 million for the community counselling mental health program. That’s not to include the psychiatric unit and the heavy duty mental health work that goes on at the hospital. I understand the Member’s frustration, but what we are talking about is a huge demand. We have this huge need among a large portion of our population who needs mental health support, right up from psychiatric and most acute care that needs to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not familiar with what details that concept entails, but if the Member would like to provide me with that information, we will have a further look at it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I need to find out more information about exactly what that $5,000 program speaks to. What I can tell the Member is that it may be that is allocated monies under one program. Communities like Trout Lake, or other communities, can access other programs and funding whether they be within the authority or department-wide. Sometimes there’s federal funding and such. Without having more detailed information, I would just like to tell the Member that if a community is interested in something specific, I’d be happy to inquire within the department and the authority to see...

Mr. Speaker, we work through the Graduate Employment Program to look at their training needs, and if there are any out of the graduating program, match them with jobs available.

My information is that is hasn’t been done and we will follow up and I will get back to the Member on timing of when that could be done. Thank you.

I think the mandate of the Health and Social Services is busy enough, full enough, demanding enough. I don’t think, unless the government tells us to, the department is interested in getting into the housing business. We have the NWT Housing Corporation that does that. I am aware that the Housing Corporation has built units and renovated units for persons with disabilities, whether they be seniors or non-seniors. I would ask the Member to kindly refer the question to the responsible Minister. Thank you.

Just firstly on the Food First Foundation, I have seen the letter from Mr. Lafferty. It was under the heading of Executive Council because it involves more than one department. That’s why I said it might be getting funding from somewhere, I just don’t know exactly which department. I’m going to get back to the Member, as I had already stated.

The Mental Health Program review began in November and we hope to have that finalized with recommendations to the standing committee in the spring, April-May.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We couldn’t do that to authorities. We couldn’t ask them to do something unless we could provide the funding. To have a 24-hour phone line for every authority, going by the H1N1 flu line, those are very, very expensive program options. We have to make a decision. It’s a duplication of service. Yet nothing stops us from requiring the authorities as long as we are willing to provide the funding. A 24-hour phone line will require two to three staff. That’s, right away, $300,000, and that’s people with knowledge about addictions. If we were to do that to all six...

The audit was conducted by Education, Culture and Employment. I have been working with the Minister on that. I do not have the recent updated information on it. I’m sorry. I will undertake to get back to him on it. Thank you.

We do provide, for example, we do have a day shelter program which is a form of... I mean, we are not obviously the users of that facility, don’t stay there, but we do serve the same clients that come out of Salvation Army or other homes in Yellowknife. We have funded the SideDoor Youth Centre with one of these two programs. We provide funding to Salvation Army, Centre for Northern Families and YWCA, so that is sort of the multi-spectrum of funding that we provide to different groups that deal with the homeless population or, you know, it is not entirely accurate to say that none of that money...