Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We understand and the Member recognizes that we need to have a long-term care facility network in regional centres at least. We have a long way in doing that. We have planned for them. We have put them into capital planning. We know that has to be the last resort. Most families and elders, even, I don’t think want to go into long-term care facilities unless they have to. This is why we set up as our long-term goal to expand home care services.

We have very good home care services in places like Yellowknife, and the GNWT provides home care as an insured service, which is...

Thank you. As the Member knows, I believe we are the biggest funder of the NWT Seniors’ Society. I don’t think we fund everything, because I’m sure they probably get funding from the federal government on a project-by-project basis, but we are a very close partner of the NWT society. So we will continue to work with them on proposals that they have. I’m not aware of the proposal that the Member is asking about specifically, but should that proposal come to me, I would be happy to look at that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That idea was brought up by the Member for Sahtu prior to the Elders Parliament recommendation and I believe the Cabinet or the government, our conclusion is that that’s not an idea that would work right now. Thank you.

I had a cursory look at the charter and I do believe that we in the Territories have programs for seniors that we can be proud of. We have very extensive health care programs for seniors, extra coverages, we have very generous long-term care programming, which is virtually cost free to the seniors in comparison to other jurisdictions where the costs are rising. We also have very extensive home care programming as an insured service, which is not the case in other jurisdictions and, obviously, we have other housing programs too. Mr. Speaker, I do believe in reading the charter that we go a long...

As I indicated, they had one initial meeting and I’m not sure if there’s a whole lot to report right now, but I am committed to working with them. I think we should give them a chance to meet and discuss and think through about where they want to go on the next phase.

I just want to repeat that my department, my officials that work with the seniors, they have a very good working relationship with them as the people who work on the Family Violence Coalition as the other coalitions we have. We have our staff working with the NGOs and stakeholders in these groups. As the material arrives from them...

My understanding is that the coalition had one meeting and they are going to continue to meet to work on making a proposal to the government on phase 3. The past practices have been not only with this Family Violence Coalition but also the Homelessness Coalition. Those are groups made up of people in the field as well as some of the government staff. Traditionally, we let them do their work and they will make their presentations to appropriate departments and the Ministers. It’s not a normal practice for a Minister to tell them what to do. Obviously, I am here standing ready to hear from them...

I think I should give him my profile of where we are with home care programming that we’re doing right now. I would be happy to give him information on where we need to go and where we plan to go. Obviously, all the time it’s subject to funding. I’ve presented information to standing committee about growing funding needs. We want to expand the Home Care Program. We want to do different things with mental health programming. We have $40 million or $50 million asked right now with the Department of Health and Social Services that we will be prioritizing and bringing forward in months to come.

I didn’t know that’s what the Member was referring to. The Member knows already, and I’ve already said that in the standing committee briefing last week and throughout the Committee of the Whole debates, that that’s the direction we need to take. We’re expanding the long-term care facilities in Behchoko from eight beds to 18 beds. We’re going to have an 18-bed facility in Norman Wells. Even in those facilities we could use personal attendants and home support workers.

We want to expand the Home Support Worker Program and Home Care Program in many other regions and communities. Yellowknife, I...

The short answer is yes, we would review each program separately and give them all due consideration. Just for the record, I think we should make it clear that a decision has not been made to discontinue the Nurse Practitioner Program. We did let them know that current funding commitment is until 2012 but, as the Member knows, because we had an in-depth briefing, we are reviewing the entire, well, we’re reviewing the Human Resource Training Program that we have with Department of Health and Social Services, not only because we’re always under financial constraints, but also because we want to...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to just remind the Member, who is standing committee chair, that I agree with him and I said that in my letter on February 25th that the prevention, and I quote, “the prevention oriented recommendations of Standing Committee on Social Programs will, in the long-term, have a positive effect on these expenditures.” I agree with him. The standing committee review of the CFSA and those recommendations about prevention and increasing child and service committees and doing more of that work, I agree with him that that is a positive step and I’ve said that.

Now the...