Caitlin Cleveland

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the Minister identifying that it is a work in progress and that ECE is still working on this. And I also appreciate the Minister of Health referencing that they are currently working on this with other departments, including the department of education. I think it's really important, and we can't still find ourselves in another decade simply looking at the fact that there's vacancies and saying, well, we just don't have enough speech language pathologist, so we just have to make do. We're going to have to look at other creative solutions like...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I almost forgot to mention happy birthday to the Minister of Housing today. My next questions are not for her. They are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

My first question, Mr. Speaker, is the GNWT's response to the OAG's education audit contained an action item of to develop greater integration of services for children and youth in the education system through expanding regional capacity. This action item is currently on hold. What concerns me is the deliverables of this action item were to explore regional approaches to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, given that there is a national shortage of speech language pathologists, is health working with ECE to create a hybrid model of partnerships, resident speech language pathologists, and communitybased paraprofessionals to provide the much needed ontheground support in our community schools. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Mr. Speaker, this time last year when I spoke to the Minister about rehabilitation services, including speech language pathology, the Minister advised that health recently organized the delivery of speech services to focus on children from birth to five years of age. How has this change impacted service delivery in the last year, and how has it changed wait times for speech language pathology. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, for over a decade Canadians have acknowledged the growing shortage of speechlanguage pathologists, especially in school settings. These services are critical for all children to access education equitably. The deficit is due, in part, to the limited number of openings in graduate programs and the increased need for speechlanguage pathologists as their scope of practice widens, rates of neurodivergent children grows, and classrooms play catchup in a postpandemic world. Also, we have an aging population.

This national shortage impacts education outcomes in the...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I ask that the chair rise and report progress.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I find it very hard to accept that response because there are other ways of delivering these services that are creative, out of the box and that are COVID friendly. There are tons of virtual solutions that are out there that a lot of school boards actually pay for out of their own pocket over school shutdowns and during COVID so that students still had access to these very important services. But those funds came out of their own budgets. So my next question, Mr. Speaker, is during my Member's statement, I spoke about a partnership that Nunavut is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, last year I asked that the wait times for rehabilitative services like OT, PT, and speech be publicly reported. The Minister shared an interest in advocating for greater transparency of wait times. So can the Minister share any updates on if and when this type of reporting will be available in real time like an online dashboard. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister mentioned that the current service model focuses on primarily on children that are birth to five years of age. And we know that typically at about age six children age out of the system, and the model that sorry. They switch to a consultation model at age six. So given the impacts of COVID19, is Health and Social Services looking to increase or remove this ageout limit to increase access to services in our community schools and that includes in Yellowknife here. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Kam Lake is very proud to have a few pages joining us this week. We have Kristine White, Rider Jensen, and Sarah Mercer that are representing Kam Lake as pages in the House. So thank you very much.