Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask my questions to the Minister of Education today. Over my time as MLA I get lots of inquiries over the Student Financial Assistance program. There’s always been a call to increase it and I understand the department is reviewing it. I’d like to ask the Minister of Education exactly where we are with this process. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We are in the process of conducting an overall review of our SFA program. It’s going to be happening this year and early next year. Mahsi.
It’s not only for those that travel to other communities, even though their needs are just as great, but even in their home communities, those rates, they feel it’s still a little bit low. What is the scope of the review of the Student Financial Assistance program, Mr. Speaker? How encompassing is it? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, once the review has been undertaken, I guess this year, we want to look at all areas. I want to reach out to the students, to the parents, to the community members. I want to hear their views, because those are the people who are impacted, those are the students who are impacted. We, as the department, would like to hear directly from them. Those are just some of the work that will be within the frame of the review, but I will be keeping the Members posted on it as we move forward. Mahsi.
I think the Minister is on the right track. He does have to get out to the communities, get to the colleges, get to the community education programs and speak to the students and parents. I believe that there should be a strong communication plan when that work begins, so I’d like to ask the Minister what kind of communication strategy will they have in place before they begin their consultations and review of the SFA. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, once we go through the process, definitely there will be a communication plan, a document that will be going out to the general public, the students, the communities, to the MLAs and the members-at-large. We’re going to have a dialogue with the general public. This is an area that has always been of interest to the general public, so, definitely, those are some of the key initiatives that will be undertaken. There will be thorough communication dialogue with the general public. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. The single students, the single-family students, the couple’s students with children all are waiting for this review. The most important question: will it be completed enough to impact students who are going to return to school this coming fall? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, this particular review, once it’s undertaken this year, will take some time because, as I stated, I want to reach out to the students. We have students across Canada and we have students in the Northwest Territories -- the vast Northwest Territories -- so it will take some time. I can’t guarantee that it’s going to be by this fall, but definitely we will push for late this fall and start working towards next year’s budget. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Following up on my statement earlier today, I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services about her plan for the expansion of midwifery services and extension throughout the Territory.
When we recognized midwifery as a regulated occupation in 2005, we laid the foundation for the establishment of this service throughout the NWT or in the NWT. Initial and important steps have been taken but they haven’t kept up with demand. The Minister points out that midwifery practice is essential to the integrated service delivery model and that there are special requirements for meeting the Canadian standards of care. What is the Minister’s vision for the future of midwifery service in the NWT, a vision that accommodates these challenges? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the Member for the question and I do look forward to receiving those petitions, which I am aware of.
Mr. Speaker, the department is engaged in doing a business plan analysis for expansion of the Midwifery Program across the Territories. The business case analysis would also include the more traditional midwives use that has been used in Nunavut, which is in line with what the Member spoke about, about bringing back the traditional knowledge. We need to look at the training options and obviously this is part of the Foundation for Change action plan. We are doing the analysis. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, midwives have been a vital part of our families and cultures for thousands of years. Obviously we have moved away from that. Meeting the advanced accreditation licensing training requirements, as the Minister mentioned, will need to be part of an integrated plan, especially for extension of services to regional communities. Will the Minister commit to working with the Minister of ECE and consider, in any review, the opportunities for training, employment and cultural support that expanded midwifery offers? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I will make sure that that is part of our review process. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the commitments of the Minister here. I would like to refer specifically to the Yellowknife situation where we are not meeting the Canadian standards for care, having only one midwife. Will that commitment be made to bump this situation up to what is required by our Canadian standards? Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, the plan we are working on is a territorial-wide model. While we have a situation that we have in Yellowknife as the Member described, I also believe that greater benefits could even be had by having some midwifery assisting with delivery of babies in many of our communities where there are not permanent doctors or doctor services. It is one that we need to look at from a territorial-wide perspective and our business plan analysis is looking at that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Once again, I appreciate the Minister’s comments. Will the Minister commit to working with our public partners to mine the best ideas they have and contribute that to the analysis for improving this service? We have a number of partners out there that are experienced in this area. Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, yes, we would obviously do that. I would commit to do that. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to just follow up on my colleague’s questions just after the Minister of Health and Social Services. I would like to thank the Minister for her previous responses as well. To be sustainable, any Midwifery Program needs to have at least two midwives, otherwise the workload would be just too over-consuming. In order to determine the capacity in a business case, whether or not a Midwifery Program is feasible in a community, we need to understand the number of births or the number of pregnancies in a community. Has the department begun the process or have we in the past collected statistics on the number of pregnancies by community through the Northwest Territories?
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe we have data on birthing by communities. I will undertake to get that information for the Member. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, that information is incredibly important in building a business case. I look forward to seeing the information.
I am curious if the Minister can confirm for us whether or not that data is being utilized to help determine what is a reasonable number of births to justify a midwifery service in a community. If she does, can she tell me how many pregnancies in a community justify the business case scenario for midwives in a community? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the Member is making correlation of analysis on this data. I am not sure if it is a connection that experts who look at these things make, but I would be happy... I have no problem looking at what the Member is suggesting.
I could tell you that in Fort Smith, since we have had a Midwifery Program, there have been 200 births and about 54 percent of those births have been attended to by the midwives. Within the Territories, Fort Smith has the most comprehensive complement of midwives and even then we have about only 50 percent, or a little less than 50 percent births still happen at Stanton. Midwifery model is designed in a way that works and it has to work with the medical model. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, in 2005-06, when I sat on the Midwifery Implementation Committee for the Northwest Territories, they were talking about Fort Smith. What they determined -- and I would like the Minister to confirm these numbers for me -- but what I think they determined in order to justify a midwife in a community, they needed to have a community that had X number of pregnancies per year. I believe that number was about 45 or 50 pregnancies a year to justify midwifery services in a community. Can the Minister confirm that number for me and let me know whether that is the type of number that we are using to help determine a business case for midwifery services for other communities in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, that is going back awhile. I need to look at that, but I am not sure if the business plan that we are working on midwifery is looking at this issue in that way.
As I stated earlier to MLA Bromley, I think what I would like to see is to have midwifery services available especially for women in communities without the full complement of medical and health services that are available in Yellowknife. It is looking at less medical model, medical-based model, which is what we seem to be practicing in both Yellowknife and Smith, but using a more traditional midwifery model that could be made available in communities which would not be based on the formula that the Member is suggesting. This is something that I just need to make sure that everybody knows we are looking at the option of a territorial-wide model. We need to do a lot of work. Our timeline is 2011-12. We need to make the case for resources. As the Minister of Health and Social Services, I would love to see midwifery programs expanding, with the focus on small communities. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think ultimately we both want the same things. I agree with what the Minister is saying. We need to have services available for people in communities because midwifery does not only provide birthing services, they also provide pre- and postnatal care. What I am concerned about is maximizing dollars. If we have a community that only has three or four pregnancies a year, it does not justify midwifery services. I want the Minister to provide me with some of the data on what justifies, what level of pregnancies justifies a business case which does involve money and it would be territorial money. What number justifies a business case for actually putting midwifery services which includes two midwives in certain communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, as we are all aware, we have 31 communities in the Northwest Territories. I think the communities like Inuvik or Fort Simpson, Hay River, Norman Wells, are good candidates for having midwifery services where mothers could be supported from surrounding communities. Obviously I don’t think we could do it in the smallest of communities where there might be two or three births. I believe originally the Midwifery Program was targeted for Hay River. The community chose not to take that on and that position started in Yellowknife.
So this is an important issue and it needs a comprehensive look. It’s a direction that we have to take for the future, but we are engaged in looking at a full-scope analysis. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to continue today asking some questions to the government about how it intends to address the incidents of family violence in our Territory. Mr. Speaker, I’ve been asking questions here all week and I was reading the CBC site this morning and it looks like we’ve got a new family violence treatment program coming along set to open, as the story indicates, next month. I’ve asked a number of questions this week and neither the Minister of Justice nor the Minister of Health and Social Services said anything about this new program. I’d like to ask the Minister of Justice what he knows about this new program and when it’s going to be started. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Justice, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. When I outlined the programs that were being offered at corrections, I did mention various different programs that are available. Also, the Member is referring to the domestic violence, I believe. I’m just looking up the information here.
Mr. Speaker, this is a program that’s going to be scheduled to be delivered as of March and we are looking forward to that. That’s the Domestic Violence Treatment Option through court. So I did mention that when I was highlighting all my programs, all of the programs that are being offered to those individuals. It is an option for low-risk offenders who are willing to take on the responsibility for what they’ve done and participate in the treatment program. So that is the program that the Member is referring to. Mahsi.
Thank you. I must have missed that, this new family violence treatment program that the Minister says he talked about. I’ll have to go back and check Hansard. I don’t believe I heard that. I also didn’t hear the family violence court process like the Yukon has that is supposed to be implemented here in the Northwest Territories sometime down the road. That’s something else I’d like to ask the Minister about, but perhaps while I can, I’m going to ask the Minister, he did mention some programming that is currently in place at the North Slave Correctional Centre, one that deals with emotions and anger and the other one that deals with family violence. Mr. Speaker, last year the program that deals with anger and emotions was offered one time, a six-week program offered one time in a year. The other program that deals with family violence was offered one time in a year.
Mr. Speaker, again, I’m going to ask the Justice Minister will he review the frequency, content and the quality of the programs being offered to people that are incarcerated in our correctional system? Thank you.
Mahsi. From time to time we do offer different programming at the North Slave Correctional Centre. In 2010, in October, we also offered the National Sex Offender Program. This is a federal program. Also, different programs are being offered at corrections. I have the list here. We have programs that are being delivered and I can definitely share that with the Members around the room. This is an area of interest for us, how we can rehabilitate those individuals back into the communities. The Member is asking for a review of what’s out there. Again, we have done that review. We can look at those programs that we have currently and the programs that we’ve delivered in the past and possibly bring back some of those programs that have been successful. Those are the areas I can look at. Mahsi.
Thank you. My intent in all of this is to work with the Minister and work with the government in ensuring that we make sure that public safety is a priority here in our Territory.
Again, I want to take issue with the fact that we’ve got two programs that are running out there. The Anger and Emotions Program, a six-week course, and the family violence course. Both of those courses, Mr. Speaker, were offered once last year. That is not enough and it’s little wonder people are ending up in our court system 16, 17 and 18 times. The system is failing, Mr. Speaker. Again, I’d like to ask the Minister if he’ll review the frequency, the quality, the content, the full gamut of what programming and services are available out at North Slave Correctional Centre and the rest of the corrections system here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Mahsi. I did already commit to the Member that I will have my department look at these programs that were offered. Those programs that the Member is referring to, if they’ve been successful in the past, definitely they can be brought back. I need to work with the Members on that and also with corrections. Those that are not on the list, we need to explore those areas as well. I know several Members have raised other programs in the past and those are programs that we’re also looking at possibly delivering in the correctional institution as well. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Your final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Also in that news story it talks about the Family Violence Treatment Program being the first of two new programs that the government is going to bring forward to address domestic violence in our Territory. I’d like to ask the Minister when the work towards the establishment of these programs was brought to the Standing Committee on Social Programs and whether or not the government sought the input of the standing committee, Mr. Speaker, and where the money is in the ‘11-12 budget to accomplish these two new programs that apparently are coming along. Thank you.
Mahsi. The Member is asking for detailed information. I can definitely provide that to him. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I spoke of addictions in the small communities. I have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Mr. Speaker, does the Department of Health and Social Services have a strategy to address the issue of heavy alcohol consumption in the small communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
