Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Health and Social Services. I want to follow up on my statement and talk a bit about the Territorial Respite Care Plan, which apparently is ready to go.

I would like to ask the Minister, first of all, if he would give me, and give the House and the public, an update on the Territorial Respite Care Plan, where it is at. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Yellowknife Association for Community Living and the NWT Disabilities Council provide many programs for disabled persons and their families. One of the most widely used and most appreciated programs is the Respite Care Program.

Under the Respite Program here in Yellowknife, a caregiver from the Yellowknife Association for Community Living takes care of disabled children for three to five hours a week. The program not only gives the children’s families a short break each week, but it also introduces the children to a social life outside their families.

The Yellowknife...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. My last question, I guess, goes to… Now I’ve totally lost my question and I’ll have to go to the one that I didn’t intend to ask.

The Minister talked about home care and that respite is available through home care. I’d like to ask the Minister if families needing respite care are using home care without any further resources added to the home care services in the communities, is that not just going to overwhelm the home care staff in our communities because they’re now providing home care for adults as well as home care for disabled persons?

We are in the business planning process right now, and I think the Minister is well aware of that. We have a business planning process every year.

I’d like to know from the Minister where respite care and the territorial respite care plan sits in the priorities for the department. Is he negotiating with Finance to have the respite care expansion start in ’13-14 or are we talking ’20-21?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That sounds like a fairly bureaucratic process and rather long and involved to simply get a family some assistance to deal with the stress that they are under from day to day.

Is this a dedicated person who is providing respite through home care? If not, when are we going to get dedicated personnel in our communities to assist families with the respite care they need? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister. I know that there are some respite care programs outside of Yellowknife. There are three communities which have respite care for some of their residents there, but as I mentioned in my statement, there is an overwhelming need for respite care in the other 29 communities that aren’t yet served by any kind of respite care. I would like to know from the Minister when is the department going to recognize… I think they recognize that there is a need, but when are they going to recognize it as an overwhelming need? When are they going to start providing services in our other...

There is an overwhelming need for respite care in our territory. When will the Health and Social Services department roll out the territorial respite implementation plan?

I will have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services at the appropriate time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, want to thank the mover and the seconder of the motion for bringing it forward, Mr. Bromley and Mr. Yakeleya. You’ve heard already, and we’re going to hear again, that this is a controversial motion. We’ve already had great debate at committee about it and I think it was a very healthy debate. I appreciate the comments I’ve heard from committee and I appreciate the comments I’ve heard today.

In listening to my colleagues, I get the impression that they think we are debating a federal bill. That’s not what we are doing, Mr. Speaker. We are debating the effects of...

I’m still struggling to get a year out of the Minister. If the Minister wants us to indicate to him that respite care is an important priority, then I’m certainly sure that the standing committee can do that for him. I asked where it sits in the priorities for the department, and I don’t think I really heard an answer.

Again, I would like to know from the Minister… He says that there are no new initiatives. This plan is already in progress. I don’t think it’s a new initiative to expand a plan, but I’d like to hear from the Minister, if that’s the government stance, that an expansion of any plan...

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Thank you to your witness. Sergeant-at-Arms, if you would escort the witness out of the Chamber.

We’ll move onto Bill 13, An Act to Repeal the Credit Union Act. We’ll go to the Minister responsible for the bill. Mr. Abernethy, do you have any comments or an introduction to the bill?