About identifying some of the outstanding issues, is there a time frame of when this issue will be resolved? Is the Minister willing to commit, even 24/7, to have this discussion done, to have a sit down with the Yellowknives First Nation and Dene Nation, and come up with an agreement like in the good old days when we negotiated our land claim agreements?
I’d like to point out that we’ve had six meetings with the Tlicho Government and Tlicho people. We’ve had three very successful community hunts outside the band area, working with the Tlicho communities, and got caribou into the communities to be dispersed and distributed. We’re looking to have the same kind of arrangement with the Yellowknives. We have an offer on the table in terms of a small controlled hunting zone working with our own biologists and elders based on traditional knowledge as well as the science. We’re waiting for specific feedback to that issue. As well, we have on another track the discussions that I’ve just touched on with the Dene Nation.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Congratulations on your success in the Tlicho region. I’m talking about the Yellowknives Dene and their issue here. I’d like to ask the Minister again if he would commit all his time and effort to his officials to sit down with the Yellowknives Dene and the Dene Nation involved here, sit down, go somewhere, hammer out a deal, hope that by this week we can have a deal. Listen to both sides, come out with an issue. This is a critical issue here. I ask the Minister if he can commit the time and effort and resources to hammer out a deal with the Yellowknives Dene.
One of the issues that the Member talks about meeting with the Yellowknives, which we’re prepared to do. At the same time we have the Dene Nation telling us that they’re acting on behalf of the Yellowknives. There’s some confusion that has to be cleared up in terms of who we are dealing with and has the decision-making authority to resolve this issue. We have our staff who have been, and continue to be, willing to sit down any time of the day or night to try to sort this out.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The time for question period has expired. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 7 on the Order Paper.
---Unanimous consent granted.
Return to item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to continue asking questions about sole-source contracts that the government has recently entered into. I guess the first question that I probably should ask the Premier about is I’m wondering if the contract to BDK Consulting and Communications for work provided for the cultural component of our participation at Vancouver 2010, was that contract sole sourced and how much was it for?
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That portion of the work was an RFP.
How much was that for?
The contract I believe was issued under ECE and I’ll have to get that detail to him.
I’d like to ask the Premier who was on the review team reviewing those RFPs.
I believe it was representatives of the Department of ITI as well as ECE. But we can get that information as well.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are to the Minister of Health and Social Services regarding the written request that I asked for information on the cost of physicians and registered nurse visits to Tsiigehtchic. I noted in the response, the Minister stated that there were eight physician visits to Tsiigehtchic between 2008 and September 2009. She also made reference to nurses-in-charge have made 20 visits to Tsiigehtchic between October. All together, between the two positions, it’s 28 days they visited Tsiigehtchic, which is less than a month.
I have been asking this Minister for going on two and a half years to find a nurse for Tsiigehtchic. Today we’re no closer than we were two and a half years ago. I ask the Minister, when are you going to find a nurse for Tsiigehtchic in this decade, before you leave office, before we leave this House? Can you get an answer to me so that the people in Tsiigehtchic know that we are going to deal with this issue and not continue to slide it on to the next group? I’d like to ask the Minister when the people in Tsiigehtchic will have a full-time nurse in their community.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With respect, the information that the Member just read should be read together with other information that we have provided. The information on nurses-in-charge, we know that we’ve had at least 36 weeks of nursing coverage in Tsiigehtchic for a community of 170 people. The Member knows that I am committed to enhancing nursing services in Tsiigehtchic and all the small communities. That is the work we are doing with Foundation for Change. It is wrong when we tell the community members that they don’t have nursing services. We have nursing services in Tsiigehtchic. I understand that there is not a nurse living and sleeping in Tsiigehtchic all year round, but for a community of 170 people we have 36-week coverage by a nurse. It works out to about 10 hours a year for doctor service. So we are doing the best we can to provide services in Tsiigehtchic.
The community of Tsiigehtchic want a full-time nurse in that community, just like any other community of similar size in the Northwest Territories. That’s all we’re asking for. To continue to stand here and say, well, we’re providing services, but they might come in once a month or twice a month is not service. For me that’s a referral system that this government is turning into. I’d like to ask the Minister what efforts are being made to get a full-time nurse in Tsiigehtchic.
Every effort is being made to make sure that we provide a good health care coverage to everyone in the Territories. The community of Tsiigehtchic is getting better service than any other community that size in the Northwest Territories.
Well, the Minister hit it right on the head; that is the problem with your service system. The service system you have for small communities is a referral system; it’s not a service system. I’d like to ask the Minister, since you’re the one that raised it, what are you doing to provide service to all the communities of the Northwest Territories so we have services that are real services, not referral services where you find somebody to come in and check you out, they find out your sick and medevac you out?
I’d like to ask the Minister if you are going to do anything to improve the services in all the small communities in the Northwest Territories so we can really actually see a quality of health care for all our small communities in the Northwest Territories that really meet the needs of those people and provide them adequate health care.
I tabled in the House about three weeks ago satisfaction surveys from residents all over the Territories about the services they’re receiving in health centres and hospitals. Over 80 percent of people say they are satisfied with the services they have. It is wrong... I understand the Member would like to have a resident nurse in Tsiigehtchic. A lot of our services, even in bigger communities, are by referral services. We’re not able to have resident doctors, resident nurses, resident radiologists, resident everything in every community. We do spend $326 million for 40,000 people scattered in 33 communities. Our services are managed by eight boards and we fund boards in block funding and they are doing everything they can to provide as much service as possible to every community. If you compare any data, Tsiigehtchic gets really good service for the people that need. We will continue to work to improve that.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask a direct question to the Minister. I’d like to ask the Minister if you even have the capacity to do this job or should we find someone else to do it.
Mr. Krutko, I would ask you to direct your questions to the chair. Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member has been here for 14 years, and he asked exactly the same question, and he understands the challenges we face and the challenges I face as the Minister of Health. This government is more daunting than we’ve ever had before. We have demographics that are changing; needs are changing. We have increased our budget by a large percentage, but our boards are struggling to provide all the services that they need. All indicators are showing that we, by far, are doing better than any other place for this kind of remoteness and this kind of size and the challenges we are facing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, several weeks ago I called upon the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources to organize a small and limited caribou summit about organizing the chiefs, the right type of personnel, and I’m not talking about a flood of bureaucrats, I’m talking about the people. I feel this caribou issue is more about politics than legal questions. I’m just curious. Would the Minister explain to me: is this a caribou summit? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Mr. Speaker, just to reaffirm that this issue is first and foremost about the caribou and protecting the caribou to give them some help in their time of need to regenerate and, hopefully, have their numbers grow as we come through with a larger harvest management plan. I’m not quite sure what the Member is talking about in terms of is this a summit. We’re working to resolve the immediate short-term issue related to the no-hunting zone and working with the Yellowknives to access enough animals for their communities, similar to the arrangement we have with the Tlicho. At the same time, we are working with the Wekeezhii process, which will bring together a whole host of interveners, as well as the aboriginal governments, will flow over into the Akaitcho and the Northwest Territories Metis. As well, in addition to that, we are working with the co-management boards and their executive directors, at present, and chairs to look at pulling them together in the not-too-distant future to look at the very many overlap issues that are before us with all the herds that we currently manage in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I called several weeks ago that we organize in such a way that we deal with the politics of this type of issue and both the outcry and the fall-out that could happen. So, Mr. Speaker, I’m just trying to get clarity on what type of meeting the Minister is having. Like, what type of format, what are the objectives of this meeting, and what is the goal of this particular meeting? Unlike what I had suggested, a caribou summit to discuss the issue to work together. Thank you.
The summit we had in Inuvik about three years ago now was about a half a million dollars, and it brought people in for the first time from around the North to discuss caribou. Things have progressed considerably since then in terms of the planning, what’s happening to the caribou herds, the need to work very specifically on a herd-by-herd basis with all the boards to develop harvest management plans. I’ve just laid out for the Member basically three tracks that we’re dealing with with the short term, the mid-term and then the longer term to sort out the harvest management plan for the Bathurst herd. Those processes are all currently underway. Thank you
Mr. Speaker, every time I mention “summit” the Minister seems to think that I’m talking about planes and planes and trains and buses of people. Mr. Speaker, I continually point to the fact that I’m asking about a small group of people. I often wonder why it’s so difficult on the other side of the House to say that was a good idea, maybe we should do that. So how much different is my call to rally a few people, the affected chiefs only? Again, keep the bureaucracy at home. How much different is this call for a small meeting than the one being described by the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources? And I’m prepared to accept his apology if it’s the same thing.
The Member says tomato, I say tomato. We’re on it, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Member for recognizing that we’re on it. If he would like me to say tomato instead of tomato, I’d be happy to say that, but the point is, we’re going to the same place and the Member’s suggestion is an excellent one: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask a few more questions of the Minister of Health and Social Services with regard to her and the department’s plans for Supplementary Health Benefit Program changes. The information that’s on the Health website talks about town hall meetings being scheduled and a discussion paper that is going to be released. I’m not sure if it’s been released or not yet; I haven’t had enough time since I’ve been back. With regard to the town hall meetings, there are five or six scheduled, I think. I would like to ask the Minister what format is planned for these meetings and how will the input of those attending these meetings be sought. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The meeting being planned is a town hall meeting so that any interested parties can attend. The location and time will be advertised well in advance. I believe it’s on the website and, if not already, will be advertised in the paper and other medium, so that as many people can come and they can have the information in front of us and give us their feedback based on the facts that we have on things like whether there should be some sharing of costs.
We should remember, everybody should know that we’re not talking about the range of benefits that are available. Those are going to stay the same. We’re not talking about changing any benefits. The main question is who should access that benefit and whether there should be any criteria or eligibility list. So those are the kinds of questions that people will be asked to put their input in. As well, we’ll be looking at asking people to respond on-line for those who cannot attend because they’re not in town or the time is not appropriate. So we are interested in hearing from as many people out there as possible as to how we should make changes to the Extended Health Benefits Program.
Thanks to the Minister. I really didn’t get a sense, from her answer, what the format of the meeting is going to be. She’s talking about information being in front of people. I question how it’s going to get there. There is an awful lot of data that has been gathered, and I spoke earlier, I commend the department for doing that data, doing that research, but it sounds to me as though the department is putting the data out there and asking people to interpret it, and I’m not so sure that that’s an easy thing to do. Are they asking people to make their own conclusions? So I’d like to ask the Minister again, the format of these town hall meetings, how is the information going to get to the people who are there, and does she think it’s realistic that people can draw their conclusions from the data? Thank you.
I’m not sure if I understand the question. I’d like to give our public a lot more credit than what the Member is suggesting. I think if you see the material on the website, it’s quite plainly written. There will be a facilitator at the meeting that will present the facts. We’re not going to tell people to interpret. We will present the facts and then engage in a dialogue, very much like what we did with the standing committee and very much like what we did, I believe, with the public working group. You lay out the facts and then ask the people for their input. The facts are important, because people need something to base their input processing rather than asking just open-ended questions. But really, we are interested in hearing from the people and giving them the facts for them to discuss. Thank you.
I have to thank the Minister for that information. The first time around, I didn’t hear anything about a facilitator, and that changes hugely my vision of what’s going to happen in these stakeholder meetings. That a facilitator will present the information will have a much different impact on the people that are there, and I think it will allow them to provide the kind of input that Members and, I think, the public are looking for.
The other thing that’s noted, in terms of consultation, is a discussion paper. I’d like to ask the Minister how the department intends to generate input through this discussion paper. Are there questions involved or is it simply open-ended? Thank you.
The input will come from the feedback that we would receive in the town hall meetings. As well, we will be posting questionnaires on the website and we would advertise that so people will be able to go in there. There are some checkbox kind of questions, but there are also spaces where people can write their opinions on the questions they ask. So it will be designed in a way that will allow people to give their feedback on the information they see and what other suggestions they might have. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
