Tom Beaulieu

Mr. Speaker, I apologize. I recognize that we were dealing with the child and family service resource centres that are now under the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, but the plan to consolidate programs along with our Healthy Family Program is in the works. It is something that we are doing under the work that we are doing under the Early Childhood Development Framework. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I can do that. I can provide the information to the House on our work in all of these areas. I don’t have a problem with that. I can provide information on the amount of money that we’re spending in these areas. I can compare that with what other jurisdictions are doing as well. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, one of the main components to expansion of the Midwifery Program was to have the Midwifery Program that is currently operational in Fort Smith be the main supports to developing a Midwifery Program in Hay River and then expansion to Beaufort-Delta and ultimately into a territorial Midwifery Program.

One of the midwives resigned just at the point when we were launching into our plan to expand the Midwifery Program, so the first action became the replacement of that midwife. That has been done. A new midwife has been hired. A team has been put together.

In addition to that, another...

No, I’m not aware that there is a vast discrepancy between the money that we provide as a government and the other governments across the country provide specifically for autism and Attention Deficit Disorder. I do recognize that it is fairly new work, but we are getting involved in many areas of this type of area where we’re starting to learn more about the impacts, and we’re learning more about the actual recognition or the prevalence of these various disabilities as we’re working at the national level with other jurisdictions. Thank you.

We will work on the policy. As I indicated, Tsiigehtchic is one of at least six communities across the North that don’t have nursing units, therefore don’t have nurses living in the community. We are trying to work on the model that will allow that to happen. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, whether I make a Minister’s statement on this vaccination or not would be determined within Cabinet. We do have a certain amount of Ministers’ statements that we would like to present in the House for providing information. If I’m not able to do the Minister’s statement, I would be pleased to provide it in writing to the Member or to the House. Thank you.

In Tsiigehtchic and other communities where nurses do not stay, do not overnight, I know that during freeze-up and breakup in Tsiigehtchic we do place a registered nurse in the community on a full-time basis at that point. But to have somebody stay overnight in all these communities, we have not been able to do that just because of the situation.

The model is actually asking for a minimum of two nurses, if we are going to place nurses into a community, and also that there be RCMP officers in the community when we place nurses in the community. Therefore, that model kicks in at a certain...

Mr. Speaker, I’m prepared to have the department check with the physicians that make a decision on which individual groups should be getting a certain type of shot for certain types of viruses. If young men or young boys are not getting the shot for the virus due to an oversight on the part of the department, then we will give them shots too. Thank you.

Thank you. In all honesty, there was an idea at some point to increase the role in Hay River in the management of some of the Deh Cho communities. However, that was not accepted. It was something that we discussed for a very short time period and that was something that the communities in the Deh Cho did not accept. The new public administrator that was appointed to replace the board did not accept that, based on his discussions with the leadership in the Deh Cho. So we are not planning on rolling Deh Cho Health and Social Services under the Hay River authority.

In Hay River we will provide...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this point the plan for the Deh Cho Health and Social Services Authority is to remain with the public administrator – myself and the public administrator spoke – for at least two years in order to do some of the work that we think is necessary, some of the issues that we’re dealing with in the Deh Cho Health and Social Services. Thank you.