Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that this committee strongly recommends that the government take immediate action to identify the funds necessary to allow for the establishment of ongoing contribution agreements for the management and operation of day shelters.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. A motion is on the floor. To the motion. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Certainly it’s a pleasure to move this motion. This is about two particular issues at large, if I may speak to it in that manner. Our committee believes in supporting the shelter that has been established here in Yellowknife, but at the same time we said in a plural form, which is we believe that the communities deserve these much needed opportunities of day shelters as well. This motion’s intent is to extend ongoing services to the Yellowknife day shelter, but at the same time, we think it’s critical that the communities and the regions cannot be forgotten because this problem doesn’t always exist here and they need full support from this government as well.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I do support this motion. I like how the motion was worded, because it was for the management of day shelters, which really talks about not just the requirement in our major capital city here, which we all like to refer to as more of a territorial day shelter, but the operation of future day shelters across the Northwest Territories. We need to always remind ourselves of that.
It’s obvious that the approach that we’ve done for day shelter management has been piecemeal at best. The continuity and ongoing stewardship that we require from people who do our programming need consistency and we need to have a strong message collectively from this government, that we’re supporting this on a long-term basis and not year to year. I do support this motion and I look forward to my colleagues doing the same.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called.
---Carried
Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that this committee strongly recommends that the government take immediate action to identify additional funding for health promotion and education initiatives in areas such as healthy eating, active living and early childhood development.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. A motion is on the floor. To the motion. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. This motion clearly indicates that we need to focus on some better initiatives in the education and promotion of healthy, active living. I just want to share a couple of key statistics with you to put a light on this motion.
Life expectancy is six years lower in the NWT than the Canadian average, and I think that’s why this motion has been brought forward. Sixty-three percent of NWT residents 15 and over are overweight or obese compared to only 51 percent of Canadians. It is clear and obvious that we need to do a better job in health promotion and education so that we have much more healthy residents in the years to come.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Active living and physical activity levels is one area where we in the North are challenged. I think there needs to be some additional attention. It’s demonstrated that is so important, even during early childhood to the brain development, but also for health throughout life. The committee has repeatedly asked, as one specific example, for some form of milk subsidy. We, apparently, haven’t done that because parents need to take responsibility for raising their own children. Our employment rates are as low as 30 or 40 percent in some of our communities. This is not a matter of them not wanting to take care of their children. That’s one example. Let’s get that done. I still get requests for that and I know other Members hear about it occasionally as well. I will be supporting the motion.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. To the motion. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to briefly touch on this motion here. I think committee members and residents don’t have to look any further than some of the key findings in the Health Status Report that was brought forth in August 2011 and some of the key findings that need to be addressed to protect and increase the healthy living of our residents of the Northwest Territories. Obviously, with my background, and seeing the effectiveness of health promotion and education initiatives, and putting more dollars into that and investing into our people, I will be supporting this motion. Like I said, you don’t have to look much further than the Health Status Report of residents of the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called.
---Carried
Page 8-31, Health and Social Services, activity summary, community wellness and social services, operations expenditure summary, $89.259 million. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to ask a little bit about the family violence and counselling. I know we’ve had our third, sort of, Phase 3 recommendations on this area, and this year we weren’t able to advance on all of those but I think there was general agreement to them as priorities. Could I just get, maybe, an update on what we’re proposing to do in this fiscal year under consideration here in the way of addressing family violence and the Family Violence Plan, Phase 3.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are continuing the work that was being done under the family violence prevention initiatives in 2012-2013. Social Marketing Strategy, $82,000 community protocols, $120,000; community response teams, $90,000; recovery and support programs for children, $75,000; for a total ongoing contribution of $367,000.
That sounds like a good response. Can the Minister confirm that that addresses all of the recommendations of Phase 3 based on the recent review?
The information I have is that it does address the recommendations and that we are working with the Coalition on Family Violence to address the recommendations in the original plan.
Thanks for those remarks from the Minister. I know Health is working with the Department of Justice, as well, and there are some other programs in that department working on this initiative.
I guess, just on the mental health side, I was happy to see that there is now some attempt to fund the Mental Health Action Plan that resulted from the extensive review that was done. Can this Minister tell me if that will address the needs for assessment and diagnosis and care that would be required out of mental health court, the services that would be required for a mental health court in the Northwest Territories.
I would just have the deputy minister read through some of the information of the programs and information where we’re spending the money to try and address that issue.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Ms. DeLancey.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The money in this budget to start implementing year two of the action plan does start to address some of the requirements that were identified in order to address gaps and services, most notably the continuing support to the Stanton Hospital/Dalhousie Psychiatric Program which provides both psychiatric treatment in Yellowknife and also telehealth. That also involves working with Dalhousie to document the after-care and follow-up programs, because right now one of the gaps in our service is very much that when people are dismissed from Stanton, especially when they go in for outpatient psychiatry, they often don’t have a fully developed care plan or there’s not proper communication back to their authority. So a big part of the project with Dalhousie is to put those in place. That’s married with – you’ve heard about the Chronic Disease Management Pilot Project on Mental Health Care Pathways; these two initiatives are marrying. That’s a big part of it.
Another part of it is putting in place some staff to continue the work on standards, updating the manuals – this is an outstanding commitment – so that we do, again, have consistent standards of practice for follow-up in every authority. To that extent the budget does start to address those service gaps.
Thank you, Ms. DeLancey. Mr. Bromley.
That is positive news. But, of course, I think the committee is looking to fully address all of the gaps. What would it take? What is left to be done? These are the sorts of things that will be useful in discussions to come.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that response we’ll go to Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We don’t have a lot of the detail here on the gaps in order to fill all the requirements that are needed and the work that’s needed by the department in order to meet the needs of the development of a specialized court. What we have and what we will work on – and, of course, that motion was passed today – is that we have some work being done with the development of a youth and detox program models as one of the pieces. We are looking at hiring some mental health specialists in the professional development and also in the quality assurance. Also, looking at some other positions. Chronic disease management that we spoke of a bit will also have a relation to that since mental health is also considered a chronic disease. During the development of the chronic disease, the department will see, and there will be some correlation between the development of the chronic disease on the mental health portion of the development of the Chronic Disease Strategy and also the finalization of the specialized courts. In addition, we’d have to work with the Department of Justice to do, sort of like, the final gap analysis or assessment in order that we could be prepared to fill the gaps for the specialized court.
I will ask for the chair’s indulgence to have the deputy fill in some other information.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Ms. DeLancey.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just two final pieces of information. The work with Justice on feasibility assessment is ongoing. I believe the Committee on Social Programs has had a presentation on that, and part of that is the final assessment of gaps. The other piece of information we have as part of the partnership with Stanton and Dalhousie University, Dalhousie has worked with all of our authorities to identify gaps in service. We received a report on that very recently. We do need to marry those two pieces of work together in the coming couple of months and then we would have a much more complete sense of where the gaps in service are.
I guess, in summary, what we’ve got in year two of the action plan is addressing those things that were already identified and we’re now doing the final work to try to identify anything outstanding.
Thank you, Ms. DeLancey. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks to the Minister and deputy minister. I think those comments are very useful and help fill in my understanding.
I guess my last question is, you know, I frequently heard that we need… I’m sorry. I don’t know the terminology, but is it a forensic psychiatrist or somebody who’s able to do the assessments and so on for a mental health court to be workable. Where are we on that? On having those talents ready and available within our government.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. With that, we’ll go to Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We will be addressing that through our collaboration with Dalhousie psychiatry work that we’re doing. I guess it would be the Dalhousie psychiatric telehealth.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Bromley, your time is up. If you want to get back on, just give me a cue. Moving on with questions on page 8-31 I have Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. A few questions here. I’ll start with, hopefully, a relatively easy one. I know that the Minister has committed in the House that funding for the Yellowknife Dene Ko Day Shelter will continue at least for another year. I haven’t managed to find where the budget indicates that funding, so if I could be directed to the spot in the budget that indicates where the funding is for the day shelter and the amount. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that we’ll go to Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That budget is in the contribution to YK Health and Social Services. The overall contribution and the total amount is $175,000.
At the risk of going beyond this page, there is an amount on page 8-32, at the very bottom, for mental health and addictions authorities, $125,000. Could I know what that references?
Okay. Ms. Bisaro, I will allow it, but we’d like to keep on page 8-31 for further questions. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It looks like the Yellowknife homeless day shelter and the Canadian Mental Health Association are the money that may be going to Health and Social Services, but we have agreed to an additional amount of $50,000 because of the withdrawal of BHP. If this is the actual same number, but we don’t understand this to be the same number. Our understanding is that it’s within the overall contribution to YK.
The deputy has just advised me that within the $1.463 million that’s within the department, that a separate contribution agreement aside from the grants and contributions that are issued to the authorities, that this, within the $1.463 million, is where the $175,000 sits.
Thank you all for that explanation. I think I’ll just leave the $125,000; $175,000 sounds a lot better, so I’ll take that. Thank you very much.
I have another question. It’s more of a concern, really. The Minister’s Forum on Addictions and Community Wellness, I think it’s now called, has been going on for some time. When the forum was first designed, it was a forum on mental health and addictions, and the terms of reference were designed under that title, and then the title was changed.
Mr. Chairman, I think a fairly common thing has been that people sometimes end up with mental health issues as a result of addictions. Sometimes people with mental health end up with addictions. That’s why we see the two items fairly linked. We’re trying to give the forum the ability to, as we appointed them as experts in the community, that they are well known in the community and had good community knowledge, that they felt that removing the mental health from their forum would net better results and better consultation at the community level by using the term addictions and community wellness as opposed to mental health and addictions. They chose that term, so that when they go out, individuals are addressing them in the community level were addressing them with their addiction issues and their wellness issues. They felt that there was a bit of a stigma attached to mental health and they chose to stay away from that as a part of their title.
However, when we do evaluate their report and determine that the work that we’re going to do as a result of their report, we’re not going to separate the two. We are going to, wherever it is necessary to work on the mental health in the community level and where it is necessary to work in addictions or wellness, and also where it is necessary to work in all of those three areas in concert, that’s what we intend to do.
