Jane Weyallon Armstrong

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is further to my Member's statement on treatment program that I did on October 20th. So it's for Minister of Health and Social Services.

Mr. Speaker, in the House on October 19th, 2022, the Premier noted that the Council of Leaders identified mental health and addiction and communitybased treatment as some of the primary issues for NWT residents. With that in mind, the Minister of Health committed to provide me with the number of NWT residents who have accessed treatment services since 2013. Have these statistics been provided? When does the Minister...

Yeah, thank you yeah, well, like I said, the school is old. Like, something's going to fail. If something failed, like, do you have money in place like, $2 million, that's for the planning stage, that's what it was. I don't know if it's changed, but so if anything happened to the school like, I mean, anything can happen, you know, because it is an old school and it's been there, like, since 1972; it's 50 years old. And it's been through quite a few retrofit before that I am aware of. So if anything happens, like, you know, we don't know. Like, so I'm just asking the Minister, like, are they...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are about 6,000 Government of the Northwest Territories employees. Over 3,000 positions are located in Yellowknife. We can only assume roughly one out of four, or one out of five people, are employed by GNWT. In the Tlicho communities and other small communities, we see what limited GNWT jobs that the majority of residents are eligible for only those benefits covered by noninsured health benefits.

Minister Green, can you please explain why the GNWT provides healthcare service for employees that is different from the healthcare service provided by the nonGNWT...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, for the people in small communities with a Government of the Northwest Territories job, there is one level of healthcare service, and for nongovernment employees, there appears to be another level of healthcare services.

Mr. Speaker, we have two systems of medical travel in the NWT, one for GNWT workers (where hotels, car rentals, and daily food expenses are covered more than enough expenses) and another system for nonGNWT, people largely covered by noninsured health benefits. The healthcare service is considerably different for residents who receive healthcare...

Yes, thank you. Yes, I know that nothing can be done without consulting, you know, with any so you have to do a lot of there's lots involved, I am aware of that with planning to have this project, if it ever gets approved or, you know, if it ever gets on the agenda. So I am aware of that. And the deputy minister did mention North Slave region, you know. Here I keep saying it, we're not part of North Slave region. It would be nice, you know, just to identify the Tlicho region itself, then I would we would really know what is being, you know what are the projects that's going to be you know...

Yeah, thank you. I did say it before, we all know the mine will be closing soon and there's going to be an influx of mine workers without jobs. So we did say that and I note Tlicho government or Gameti were expressing interest in that as well to have allseason road. And so because there's going to be a lot of workers with class 4, class 3, or heavy equipment operator. So they did ask about that. So I just want to ask the Minister if that plan is in place as well, you know, for future discussions and if there's any studies done on it and how much would it cost.

Yeah, if she can answer my question. Thank you.

Thank you can the Minister detail how much GNWT employees contribute to health benefits and how much the GNWT pays?

So what this means is that the GNWT's employees are treated better than the members of the public. So that's what it's saying. So, Mr. Speaker, I hear from constituents in my ridings how difficult it can be to navigate the healthcare system while on medical travel. Will the Minister commit to hiring people to work with and support Northerners as they navigate the healthcare system while out of the territory? Thank you

Thank you.

Section 61 of Bill 48 provides the right to appeal on questions of law directly to the courts unless their agreement expressly prohibits such appeals. This is different from the Model Act's section 65, which allows appeals only if the arbitration agreement provides for such appeals.

The Model Act assumed that appeals on questions of law would be permitted on an optin basis whereas in Bill 48 appeals are allowed unless the parties optout.

Committee members understand adopting the "optout" was a deliberate policy decision and that it follows the British Columbia legislation. The...