Thank you, Minister Lee. Next on my list, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under prevention and promotion I notice a significant increase, about $541,000 to that area. I’m wondering if I can get a breakout of how there are six subjects listed for those dollars: early childhood development, homelessness, family violence, tobacco, in-house respite services and health promotion activities. Is it possible to break those dollars out by those six activities, the additional $541,000 we’re putting into those activities? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With that money we envision creating four family home visitors centres, two in the Deh Cho and two in Beau-Del. This is for the development and delivery of early intervention initiatives which will promote the development of a strength-based, solution-focused, family-centred delivery of support services. Specifically trained support workers who will work with families to optimize the home environment for the health and physical, mental and emotional well-being of children and families. This initiative is similar to the current Healthy Families Program model, which focuses on the age group of birth to five years. Thank you.
I just want to say I’m very pleased to see that modest increase. It’s more than doubling of the budget to date but, obviously, that budget to date I see as quite inadequate. I want to compliment the department on getting that commitment and allocation in there. Are these internal dollars or is the source of these dollars federal? Thank you.
It’s government money. It’s not federal funding. It’s part of the strategic initiative investment and Building our Future. Thank you.
Thank you to the Minister for those remarks, Mr. Chairman, and kudos on that.
I have one other question on the additional $960,000 put into community services. On the next page, still under this budget item, I just wondered if I can get a little more information on how those dollars are being allocated within the social work, mental health and addiction workers; if there’s a focus in one particular area or another with those dollars. Thank you.
We believe it’s just a Collective Agreement increase. There is no enhancement in the programming. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Lee. Next on my list is Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On page 8-31, non-government organizations residential care, the…
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. We’re not on page 8-31. Let’s conclude and then I’ll come back to you for 8-31. We’re on page 8-30. Any more questions on 8-30? We’re on Health and Social Services, activity summary, community health programs, grants and contributions, contributions. Is committee agreed?
Agreed.
Now we’ll move to 8-31. Sorry, Mr. Beaulieu. I just wanted to make sure we were on the right page. Next on my list, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is all one section and the previous question was just on 8-31. Okay. Anyway, my question is still the same. On page 8-31, the non-government organization residential care, the drug and alcohol programs and services related to addictions. There is a slight increase there and also there are increases for support workers, for addictions workers and so on. My question is: is the department making any sort of shift towards the addiction works on the land? That seems to be a real, real big item for the small communities. It’s pretty well a feeling among the addictions workers there that that would be something that might work best of all. A lot of people actually talk about that, and this is, I guess, the area where there could be huge benefits to it.
I had talked about this previously and made a Member’s statement. I talked about it maybe under another section, but here seems to be the appropriate time to maybe have the department look at making a shift away from what they’re doing and then putting more money into what they are doing and doing something different that will work, because what they’re doing really isn’t showing results. I’m not sure if the department keeps results on successes, like, for example, in treatment centres, people that go to treatment centres, like, are they successful and what determines success. Is it being sober for five years? Is it one year? Is it life and how do they know? I mean, all of those things, right? It’s a difficult thing to determine. What the people are seeing is that soon after the types of residential treatment, I suppose, that’s being offered to people in the small communities, they’re back to practising alcohol use again. I’m curious, I guess, in this area if there would be actually a shift away from the standard and into something that the communities want. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. I apologize for cutting you off there; 8-30 and 8-31 are one section, so I apologize for that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That’s not part of the budget we have here, but the Member has raised that before and I committed to him last week that we will revisit that. It would take major changes, actually, because most of this money is already... That $2.931 million, most of it is going to, well, all of it is going to Nats’ejee Keh, Salvation Army and Tree of Peace. That’s the budget. If we want to use that money to do something different, it would take, you know, changes in doing things, but I think we need to look at that. I’ve committed to the Member that we will do that, and we need to do that with an eye towards the next business plan.
That’s good, Mr. Chairman. This is what I had the idea that it was going to provide service in those areas, places that were just mentioned by the Minister, and what happens in that case is the majority of that treatment and that care is provided to people, and I recognize that people from all the small communities also end up here in Yellowknife, but it is provided to the folks, most of the folks here in YK.
There’s really nothing more that I can add other than it’s good to see that if they’re going to look at something like this in the future to shift away from this type of care that they have in place now, that doesn’t really seem to be effective to maybe trying something different at the community level, I think that would have many positive aspects to it, even right into the economy of a small community in the sense of jobs and retaining some of the money there, having them deal with their own addiction issues in the community and trying to address those at the community level. Like I said, it appears as though on-the-land treatment is something that many of the Aboriginal MLAs in here have been asking for and something that I think the department has to really take a serious look at. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, we need to look at that. I have committed to look at that. It will take a different way of thinking to be able to re-profile enough money to do it territorial-wide. It is really about closing the gap in the spectrum of services available. We have residential programming. We send people away. We have staff that work in the communities. But I take the Member’s point that we don’t have enough options for communities to tap into to do on-the-land healing programs. We do fund them, but it’s on an ad hoc basis and a project-by-project basis and whether we could get some money from the feds or some other... It is sort of like we look for wherever we could find it, but I believe what the Member is saying is that we have to develop that as a program with base funding and stable funding and program guidelines. It is something that I have committed to look at it and we will look at it in the next cycle. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Lee. We are on Health and Social Services, activity summary, community health programs, grants and contributions, total $69.2 million.
Agreed.
Okay. We are moving on to page 8-32 and Health and Social Services, information item, community health programs, active positions.
Agreed.
We will move along to page 8-33, which is also an information item, Health and Social Services, details of funding allocated to health and social services authorities.
Agreed.
We are moving along to page 8-34, also an information item, Health and Social Services, lease commitments - infrastructure.
Agreed.
Page 8-35, Health and Social Services. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am sure there is a logical explanation. Is there no charge to the office base in Deninu K’ue?
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Minister Lee.
I am going to have to ask Mr. Elkin to give that information. Thank you.
Mr. Elkin.
Mr. Chairman, the information the chart reflects are current leases and any commitments. The lease for that would come up and we had to renegotiate it, so the chart does not reflect any future commitments because there is no lease for next year yet. It will expire at the end of this year, what they renegotiate.
Page 8-35, Health and Social Services, information item, lease commitments - infrastructure.
Agreed.
We are moving on to page 8-36, Health and Social Services, information item, work performed on behalf of others. Mr. Beaulieu.
Mr. Chairman, on the non-insured health benefits, we have almost $10 million for work performed on behalf of others. That is, I think, a Health Canada funding provided to First Nations and Inuit residents that are not covered under a hospital or a medical care program. My understanding from this is that the department delivers a program. So far, in the inquiries that have come from my constituents in the communities, I have generally been sending them to the website, because other than filling out the applications myself, sending them to a website asking them to pull the documentation off the website and then proceed with any applications on their own. Does the department, HSS, put any resources into supporting individuals who are trying to apply for NIHB? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Minister Lee.
No, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, could I ask the Minister why?
Mr. Chairman, I am going to ask the DM to elaborate. Thank you.
Ms. Meade.
Mr. Chairman, if I understand your question, you are asking if we put additional money into supporting people to access NIHB benefits and we would not do that. Their contact is with NIHB. These are the ones that we administer on their behalf. For example, the dental and some of those, and it is our costs above some of the medical travel and the lodge on the non-insured benefits. If you’re asking do we put additional resources for people to be able to get assistance for NIHB, we don’t. We certainly would provide them the information and contact numbers and things like that, but we don’t put extra resources into that.
We do have four positions in Inuvik, but those are totally funded by NIHB to administer the program on their behalf. So there are staff that are funded fully through NIHB.
Thank you, Ms. Meade. Mr. Beaulieu.
Mr. Chairman, I wasn’t talking about financial resources; I was referring to human resources. When this department administers these programs under work performed on behalf of others with transitional health funding contribution agreements or Nats’ejee K’eh pan-territorial social marketing project, I am asking if there is actually human resources there to support individuals to apply. Because I think that it would be good if everybody maybe had a computer or was able to go to the website, pull it up, fill out the information on their own, sign it and send it off and so on. That is not exactly the way things work in small communities. I kind of wondered about that because a lot of my questions have been simply referring me to a website. Again, aside from the four people in Inuvik, which I am fine with if their work extends beyond Inuvik and into all of the communities to provide support for individuals that need to apply for this program, understand the program, understand what benefits they have under the program as First Nations and Inuit residents, that is good. Now, aside from the four people in Inuvik, if they don’t do anything other than just sit in an office in Inuvik and administer this program from behind a desk there, is there anyone else that can support people for applying for this program?
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Minister Lee.
Mr. Chairman, the four people that are located in Inuvik help our residents to weave through the NIHB program and some of our staff help with that too. Those four minimum that we could get, I think the Member referred to pan-territorial social marketing project later in the page or did I read that wrong? They are the four. They just strictly respond to our residents’ questions and the application process for the programs under NIHB. I’m sorry; I probably didn’t answer the question correctly. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, the situation is that I have people coming to me, whether it be dental, eye care, or whatever it is, and saying, where am I going to get support, who is going to pay for this, and stuff like that. I am going back to the department. The department is referring me to a website. I had one situation where I referred an individual to the local nurse and then the situation seemed to have dissolved itself. That may be the health centre is supporting individuals, helping them apply for benefits under the Non-Insured Health Benefits, so if that is the case, fine, that way I just know where to direct people.
A lot of people ask about this and so often I am directing them to a website. Even people who are working for the government, who we would have to assume have at least a minimum of grade 12 to be working for the government are having difficulties getting through the system to apply for programs. So you can imagine that somebody that has no schooling may have even more difficulty, having no computer would have more difficulties, and so some individuals where you actually have to go into the website, print off the application forms and so on and then send them to individuals too. So I am saying we have $10 million here, we don’t want to burn it up in administration, I recognize that, but some sort of place where an individual can go, almost similar to a single-service window, I think that is now through the Sustainability and Rural and Remote Communities, maybe that type of individual in a small community can assist people with this, but it is just kind of left up to the individuals, I find. I am not sure but maybe if the program gets fully subscribed, I don’t know, at one time the actual... Two years ago the actuals where higher than what is budgeted today, so obviously the program is being used. I am wondering if there is a way that they could provide some support for individuals who apply for what they should be getting under this program or benefit.
To get more assistance or a single-window approach is something that we would have to approach the federal government on because it is their program. But in the short term and for our own purpose, I do understand what the Member is saying and I think that what I could do is see if we could make the names or the number of Non-Insured Health Benefits funded people in Inuvik available so that people could call there. I do believe that our nurses and our health care staff in our regional offices do help people wade through that. So in the website, when we give the website page, it is usually to just give a general information about what is covered and what is not, and I do appreciate that not everybody benefits from that kind of medium. People need to get that support in other ways too, so we will see what we can do there. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Lee. Mr. Beaulieu. We are on page 8-36, Health and Social Services, information item, work performed on behalf of others. Agreed?
Agreed.
