Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I recently had the good fortune to attend the very first NWT Anti-Poverty Summit. I was one of about 80 participants; participants representing 20 different NWT communities and 29 NWT organizations. This event was organized, planned and developed by two social justice non-government organizations: Alternatives North and the NWT YWCA.

The summit explored the issue of poverty in the NWT, what it is and what it is not, looked at the efforts currently being taken to tackle poverty, which ones work and which ones do not, and determined how we can move forward on anti-poverty...

Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat dismayed by the Premier’s answer, because I think what the summit said was that we need to not just have the work done by GNWT people at the outset, that we need to involve everybody at the outset or else we are not going to get meaningful input or analysis of what we currently do.

As well, during the summit, in terms of the work that needed to be done, it was stated that we needed to start to work from the ground up, not look at what is existing but basically start with a clean slate, a zero-based review, so to speak. I would like to ask the Premier what kind of work...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are addressed to the Premier today, Minister responsible for the Executive, I believe.

In having heard from the participants of the summit that the elimination of poverty has to be the highest priority for this government, and me having advised the Premier of that, and it was also in a press release that came out a week or so ago, I would like to first of all ask the Premier if he can tell us just how that will happen. What will he do to make the eradication of poverty a high priority for this government and what will he do to make sure that the work on...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have to say to the Premier’s offer to measure, absolutely we must measure where we are. Much of that work was done during the Anti-Poverty Summit and that work cannot proceed if we don’t involve everybody who is currently involved in anti-poverty actions, whether it be territorial government programs or non-government groups that are working to help people out in the trenches, so to speak.

So I guess I would like to ask the Premier again if he will reconsider this working group and reconsider expanding it to include the key stakeholders at the outset, not in an...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m a little confused by that answer. If we cover travel costs to bring somebody from outside the NWT to a facility within, then I don’t understand why we wouldn’t cover them to move from within the NWT to another facility.

I’d like to ask the Minister a question as well. It’s my understanding -- and this is anecdotal evidence, I don’t have much except for what constituents have told me -- that we will cover costs for family members to visit patients who are in a long-term care facility outside the NWT, but we will not do the same for family members visiting patients...

Thanks to the Minister for that commitment. I do have some concerns about the operation of the TAC, particularly around travel. There are a number of our residents who are either in their home community or perhaps who have been placed in a facility outside of the NWT. I’ve read the policy that’s on the department’s website. I don’t see anything in there about travel and how people are moved from one place to another. So I’d like to ask the Minister, since the policy doesn’t help me out here, do we repatriate residents who have been placed in a facility outside of the NWT? Do we repatriate them...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Tomorrow, October 16th, is World Food Day, a day with the theme of United Against Hunger. It’s an opportunity for us to reflect on our food, our food supply, and to think about who has food and who does not.

Throughout the world, no matter where you look, there are people who are hungry, people in poverty, and here in the NWT our residents are not immune to that problem of hunger and poverty.

In the last 10 years or more we’ve seen an increase in the number of food banks in the NWT and a marked rise in the number of people using those food banks. More and more our people...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a number of comments, many of which have been expressed already by my colleagues and I’m sure will be expressed again, but I feel they are important enough that I will repeat them.

You know, at the outset, I want to say that I agree with the fiscal strategy which has been outlined by the Finance Minister both last year and this year. I think it is the right way for us to go, and the fact that we’ve scaled back our capital budget for this year as compared to last year is a good thing. We don’t need to be putting ourselves in a situation where we are stressing...

Thanks to the Minister. It’s my understanding that when residents are moved from an outside facility back into the Territory’s, that the department will cover their costs. If we, for instance, move somebody from a small community outside of Yellowknife to, say, the Territorial Dementia Centre to Aven Cottage because they happen to have dementia or Alzheimer’s, it’s my understanding that that travel is not paid for by the Department of Health and Social Services. So I’d like to ask the Minister why we would cover costs to bring somebody from outside the NWT in, but yet we won’t cover the costs...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions today for the Minister of Health and Social Services with regard to the Territorial Admissions Committee. This committee was established about a year or so ago. From a press release last September, it states: “A new Territorial Admissions Committee (TAC) has been established to streamline the application process for long-term care into the NWT’s 10 long-term care facilities.” So the committee has been in place for a year or more and I would like to ask the Minister at this point how successful this program has been and how many people have been...