Tom Beaulieu

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. We’ve had many discussions about mental health and addictions since I’ve become the Minister of Health and Social Services. This action plan has been in the works for quite some time. The plan right now, as a department, we’re seeing something with a shorter time frame that’s more of an action plan rather than a strategy is something that we need in order to start to move forward and try to make some progress in the mental health and addictions field. This doesn’t mean that we will stop working on mental health and addictions at the end of three years. It is hoped, and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t know the exact time. From what I understand, the individual must remain sober for some time and also attend counselling prior to going into treatment. However, there has been a bit of a call from communities that this thing should be shortened and should be reduced, that when an individual’s time has come where they recognize that they have to go to treatment right now, that should be available. We are actually looking at that to see what type of success rate we would have if we were to do that instantly. That it is the minute the individual wants to go to...

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Today is language day. I will be doing a part of my Member’s statement in Chipewyan.

Mr. Speaker, today I would like to pay tribute to Alphonse King of Fort Resolution. He’s also known as “The Fonze.” Alphonse King was born April 5, 1949, and passed away June 8, 2012. He was only 63 years old. He died of terminal cancer.

[English translation not provided.]

Alphonse King spent the first quarter of his life in Rocher River. Like many people from Rocher River, Alphonse had to move to Fort Resolution when the school in Rocher River burnt down. He was a trapper and he had...

I know that the community counselling services are available to everyone in the communities, so also available to everyone in Yellowknife. These members that are going there, we could maybe provide some information to them, advising them that counselling for addictions is available near where the day shelter is, and that perhaps that would be a method of informing them, and also getting them to go take counselling within the city. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can’t come up with all of the services that would be offered in the shelter, off the top of my head, but I can say that the day shelter is a project that has a committee overseeing any of the projects and so on. The committee has members from the YK Health and Social Services, BHP Billiton, City of Yellowknife and our department. We can work on putting something together and provide to the Member that we can lay out what services could be offered to the individuals that frequent that shelter. Thank you.

As is across the country, the NWT recognizes that the seniors population will be growing quickly, and it’s been an issue, I think, for at least 25 years when they started to do the projections and recognizing that. For the Department of Health and Social Services, we have some senior citizens consultants to consult about what type of rehabilitation services are going to be needed, the extent of what type of services will be needed within the department. Aside from that we are funding the NWT Seniors’ Society. We give them now close to $200,000 a year for them to work with the Seniors’ Society...

As I indicated, the DM has asked to sit on the Transition Advisory Committee. What I can do is go back to the deputy minister to see if we have worked out some sort of plan with the City of Edmonton or Alberta Health and Wellness, to see if there is a plan that will support our medevacs, to see if there is an alternative closer to the uptown, such as Garrison or that some emergency may be kept open. I can have that information for the Member before the end of session.

The capital planning process is going to determine where the next capital projects will occur. It will be very difficult for me to indicate that that would be the next capital planning project that we would build. As far as long-term care and as far as health facilities go, we can seriously look at a long-term care facility over there, but how it competes against other capital projects is determined by the capital planning or infrastructure committees set up within the infrastructure we have here as a government. Thank you.

I’m not aware of any discussions with the Garrison Airport since the time that was brought up. I had recently met with the retired nurses from Alberta and the NWT; they were not aware of that as well. We spoke a bit about that. So I could get some updated information on the Garrison Airport and provide that information to the Member.

Mr. Speaker, the Department of Health and Social Services is trying to use the integrated service delivery model to try to address issues with seniors’ care right across the territory. We do recognize that the numbers indicate that we should be providing more home care services to allow seniors to live independently.

As far as the responsibility for individuals that can no longer safely care for themselves, the option is going to a long-term care facility in Inuvik. We can’t afford to build that type of long-term care facility in all of the communities, but there is one in Inuvik, although...