Sandy Lee

Once again I need to state, the naturopathic practitioners are allowed to practice their fields as they are now. So there’s nothing that needs to be done to have them practice. They are allowed to practice that now. I have stated earlier that we are reviewing this. I want to say again that I just don’t want to load so many things onto this umbrella legislation that it doesn’t make it off the ground. It is really important that we regulate chiropractors, psychologists, licensed nurse practitioners, as well as emergency responders. Those professions have been at the front of the line and they...

The Member’s line of questioning in itself is questioning the competence and the quality of the people that are practicing. I want to say that those that are licensed to practice as a therapist and naturopathic practitioners and even acupuncturists, all those professions are allowed to practice in the Northwest Territories. They just cannot call themselves a doctor. That might give an idea to the public that they are practicing medical doctor medical practices. That’s clearly defined in our legislation.

Mr. Speaker, let me just say once again what I said to MLA Abernethy, which is that we are...

I think it’s important for the Members and the public to know that professions like massage therapist and naturopathic practitioners can continue to practice their fields. They do not need the legislation to practice those. As I stated, unregulated professions pose certain regulating challenges such as small professional numbers and significant licensing differences throughout Canada. It does require tremendous research to determine how best to accommodate these unique circumstances. We believe that, as a department, by finding a framework for the most challenging and complex professions, the...

Mr. Speaker, I think the Member is drawing a clear picture of the complexities involved in this. Our staff has met with the people that practice naturopathic medicine in the Territories. They were advised that they should continue to keep their licence in other jurisdictions, then they can continue to practice naturopath medicine here. They can continue to provide services to their clients. It is just that they cannot call themselves a doctor. In order to do that, we need to do some more work. We will continue to do that, but this will be something that would require more work and it is under...

Mr. Speaker, I need to caution the Member and anybody else who is discussing this naturopathic medicine, that we do not refer to anybody as a doctor. That is actually the issue in question, because under the NWT legislation, no one other than a doctor, physician or surgeon is allowed to call themselves a doctor. Naturopathic doctors are not recognized as doctors in the Territories and of they were to call themselves a doctor, that is illegal. That is an issue here. I need to let the Members know, and the public know, the naturopathic medicine, people can practice that right now without...

A large part of the work that we do in the Department of Health and Social Services is health promotion. Our staff is out there promoting healthy eating habits, dangers of child obesity, just eating healthy and not abusing things that are harmful to us. The pre-natal and post-natal health; there is so much work we do. In the past the government has reduced the power rates in the communities and that really helps with the cost of food in our smallest communities. As well, we have increased food mail programs. Not food mail, food basket. I think it’s important that we understand that there are...

I think I can safely state that just for our department there are lots of NGOs that we fund that are delivering many, many really substantive programming, like YWCA, Sally Ann, all of our...I don’t know. I don’t want to exclude anybody. They have the stability of funding. All those applications do not come up to my office where I need to review them. So I think we need to accept that there are different types and sizes and characters of NGOs and I want to assure the Member that I don’t micromanage in that way. This is why I just want to undertake to look at this situation and see what happened...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Listening to her questions as well as the Member’s statement, I want to say first off that we do provide multi-year funding to organizations. We review them on a case-by-case basis. So I want to state that to start with.

There are two issues the Member is raising. One is there are some specific situations here that happened with respect to this organization whereby they asked to make adjustments specifically, and I would like to look into that and I can commit to look into those details and see how we could accommodate. Secondly, I will undertake also to see if we could...

Mr. Speaker, I need to first get the information. I am not sure if I will be talking to the Minister on a specific situation like that, but I would be happy to inquire on the basis of facts to get the answer for that specific situation and, in terms of a process, where could a person go to inquire when something like that happens.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member knows, this is a federal program administered by the federal government, but I would be happy to just sit down with him and get the details and inquire on his behalf. Thank you.