Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, want to extend my congratulations to the winners of the Education Hall of Fame awards today. Congratulations to every one of them. I also can’t see them, but I want to mention the seniors who are here with us today. I am wearing my purple jacket specifically to raise awareness of elder abuse. I do have three Frame Lake residents I want to single out amongst the crowds up there, so to speak: Kim Doyle, Yvonne Quick and Gordon Graydon. Welcome, everyone, to the Assembly. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that the Department of Health and Social Services conduct a thorough review of its accountability framework for child and family services to identify existing deficiencies and implement mechanisms to enhance accountability. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. May was Speech and Hearing Month, and many of us take our ability to communicate for granted, but the ability to speak, hear and be heard is far more vital to our everyday lives than most of us realize. One in six Canadians has a speech, language or hearing problem.

Each year Speech-Language and Audiology Canada dedicates the month of May to raising public awareness about communication disorders. This year in the month of May, speech-language pathologists, audiologists and supportive personnel joined forces to highlight the importance of early detection and intervention...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that the Department of Health and Social Services develop a communication plan pertaining specifically to child and family services so that stakeholders and the public are informed about completed actions, upcoming changes and anticipated timelines. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a series of motions as well.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to speak briefly to this. The job of family preservation worker was one that came to my attention through the Auditor General’s report and we have one staff person with that title within the health and social services system. It would seem to me that this is an area that we will be well advised to expand on.

The family preservation workers, as the motion says, provide in-home, individualized intervention services and that’s the sort of thing that is required with the end goal of keeping children with their families and in their home and in their community. This...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We would like to consider Committee Report 6-17(5), Report on the Review of the 2014 Report of the Auditor General of Canada on Northwest Territories Child and Family Services. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on June 4, 2014, I will move the following motion: now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, that Members of this Legislative Assembly strongly urge our federal and territorial counterparts to support Bill C-583 and urge the Parliament of Canada to schedule full committee hearings with testimony of expert witnesses, including at least one hearing in the Northwest Territories; and further, that Members of this Legislative Assembly urge the Member of Parliament for the Western Arctic to support Bill C-583.

Thanks to the Minister. Some of the information that I have indicates that we try to identify children or infants with permanent hearing loss. My concern goes to infants who have some hearing loss, because some hearing loss is going to impact kids as much as permanent hearing loss.

So to the Minister, if we have a child with some hearing loss as opposed to permanent hearing loss, do we follow up with supports and with treatment? Thank you.

My next question is similar to Mr. Dolynny’s in looking at the cash amount, but I guess if you can’t tell me the percentage, you probably can’t tell me the amount of dollars. I’m looking to know whether or not the dollar amount that we are forgiving and/or that we are losing through defaulted loans is going up or down over time.