Caitlin Cleveland

Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the Minister's recognition that a lot of this work does require a specialist to really go through this process with someone. And often medical travel's not always a possibility. Sometime there are a multitude of appointments that need to happen, and sometimes along the way people just need to be able to ask questions. And so I'm wondering if this position of a health planner and the plans of the NTHSSA speak to possibilities of creating a host of specialists that can speak to different conditions that Northerners have that Northerners...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate that, and I think that it's important that we establish a baseline if it's expected to go up substantially over the next decade.

Mr. Speaker, the rate of Parkinson's among NWT residents is low, but watching very intimately residents try to go through the process of being diagnosed leads me to believe that maybe we do have more of a higher instance of Parkinson's in the Northwest Territories and Alzheimer's and just are not aware of it.

So I'm wondering, Mr. Speaker, what supports are available to Northerners with neurodegenerative diseases in...

Mr. Speaker, our seniors and Elders are the fastest growing population in the NWT. Over the next decade, our seniors population over 60 will increase by 56 percent, and the demand for home care by 80 percent. As the GNWT pens an Elders strategy, we speak often in this House about the need for housing to support seniors to age in place with dignity. But what we don't talk about, Mr. Speaker, is the predictable surge of chronic illness. 31 percent of NWT residents over the age of 65 have diabetes, a disease shown to lead to neurodegeneration that substantially increases a Northerner's risk of...

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, it strikes me quite interesting that or it strikes me quite hard that one of the biggest uncertainties in the Northwest Territories is housing, even for the Housing Corporation, how to operate, how to build new houses, how to maintain existing ones. And so I'm wondering if there is a plan within the Housing Corporation, either within the GNWT or within the federal government, to create more certainty for the budgets going forward, because there is a huge amount of fluctuation and a huge amount of uncertainty within the corporation as to how they...

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So, Madam Chair, in the press release that we all got this week, it did identify that there was 213 units that will undergo major repairs, modernization over the next three years. One of the things that I'm noting is that in the document we're looking at right now, it does have 176 units of, I'm guessing, those 213 units, which would only leave 37 units left over. So is it the intent of the Housing Corporation to go over additional go after, sorry, additional federal dollars in future years in order to increase the number of units that they're providing...

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So I didn't hear a dollar number in that, and so I'm wondering if a dollar number does exist for that. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Does the Minister have a number of how many units are currently needing repair that are occupied?

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Are there any other units other than the 102 that are currently under repair that are sitting empty that might not be currently under repair, just to clarify. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I give notice that, on Tuesday, December 7th, 2021, I will move the following motion:

Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, that Ms. Bronwyn Watters be appointed as the Equal Pay Commissioner in accordance with the Public Services Act by the Commissioner of the Northwest Territories as recommended by the Legislative Assembly;

And further, that the Speaker be authorized to communicate the effective date of the appointment to the Commissioner. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate that information. I think anecdotally from what I am learning, alongside some constituents, is that the process of going through the recognizing of a degenerative disease and then from there being able to go through the process and begin the process of being diagnosed is really a difficult, difficult stage of the of the entire journey and that we do not have, in the Northwest Territories, specialists who are able to help people through that process and that can be very, very difficult because you end up kind of trapped in this area of not...