Tom Beaulieu

Mahsi cho, Madam Speaker. The plan is for some of the preliminary work to be done now and we’re hoping that the long-term construction… I think the target date for the long-term construction is to begin construction in the summer of 2013 and conclude it in the summer of 2015.

The last government didn’t do it, though. That’s why it’s still here. We are trying to deal with it now. We are trying to provide a service that’s needed.

Mahsi cho, Madam Speaker. Today I would like to acknowledge the passing of three Tu Nedhe constituents.

Marina Catholique-Norton was born January 21, 1954, and passed away February 22, 2012. Marina was only 48 years old and passed away in her sleep. Marina is survived by her husband, Robert Norton; her son, Lorenz Frank; sister, Mary Jane Michel; and brothers Herman, Joseph and Henry. Ray was considered to be her brother by her late parents, Pierre and Judith Catholique. Marina is also survived by numerous nieces, great-nieces, nephews, great-nephews, cousins, aunts, uncles and friends. Marina...

My assumption of what the last government may have said would be that they have RCMP and nurses in the community for safety reasons, so at the times in which the nurses could potentially be called out in the evening for emergency situations and so on. I don’t know if that was an excuse, but I don’t know if there are RCMP in Wrigley at this time as well.

What I’m saying is that as a department we are looking at each community and what their needs are. We have situations and have reviewed situations. For the amount of work that would be required by a nurse in the communities where there are under...

Dental services are not an insured service by the Government of the Northwest Territories. Along with our government, Nunavut and Yukon, we have engaged in discussions with Health Canada. It’s not a simple process where I can make a commitment to send a dentist in. It’s not an insured service. This takes time for us to develop something. We need to work with Health Canada. They’re the ones that are responsible for the dental services in these communities. It’s something that I could continue to work on. I could maybe keep the Member informed as to how our discussions are going. I recognize...

We have encountered that situation numerous times. We have recently received some situations such as that from the Sahtu with the requests for reimbursement. At this time I don’t know what the response is on that specific item. I don’t have the information with me, but I had contact with the client, and had the discussion with that particular client, and sent the information to the system and have not heard back from the client whether or not there was a refusal to pay his dental bills or anything. I was assuming that it was taken care of, but I will follow up on those issues and we will...

I know that initially when this issue was being contemplated through the media and so on with elders, I’ve had initial discussion with the Minister of the Housing Corporation. After the motion was made by the elders, we’ve had another discussion. I am prepared to work with the Minister of Housing to look at that decision. Thank you.

Thank you. I wasn’t thinking that the Elders Parliament was specifically a seniors’ issue, I thought it was an Elders Parliament that was more of a parliamentary thing. So I looked at that from not as a Minister responsible for Seniors, but looked at the Member’s statement for Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Seniors and Persons with Disabilities and said I would ask the staff. I had asked the staff to look at the statements to see which one of those statements pertained to the three areas that I’m responsible for, to see if there wasn’t work already being done in those...

Yes, we can do that. We can work with the Sahtu Health and Social Services to ensure that they keep tabs on the project and that we communicate the progress to the people in the Sahtu. Thank you.

The building itself, both buildings and the outbuildings that the long-term care or what was referred to as the senior citizens home in Deline does belong to the NWT Housing Corporation. Right now it’s being leased out to Health and Social Services and we are using the main part of the building. The community wishes that part of the building would be opened up and the administration of health and social services, I think their home care programs and counselling and so on that were in there, would be moved to one of the out buildings. At this time there needs to be an evaluation done by...