Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Miltenberger.
I’ll refer that question to the Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Madam Chair. A lot of the initial work is going to be based in Fort Good Hope and Fort Resolution, with the request from those communities that they had high cancer rates, so we’ve determined that at least Fort Resolution does have higher cancer rates than normal and that Fort Good Hope was marginally higher than the other communities within the Sahtu. There is going to be some work done in there, but the understanding and the plan is to expand to all of the communities so that this work is occurring in all communities where we’re looking at cancer prevention through lifestyle changes, early detection through appropriate screening. That’s our objective with this money.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Dolynny.
I do appreciate that we are looking at areas I know the Member for the Sahtu is very adamant. I’ve worked alongside the Member looking at those cancer rates. I guess my question is, out of that budget of $200,000, what percentage of that budget is really adhered to early detection through screening?
I don’t have that information with me as far as the percentage. I would say that more of the money would be spent on the prevention through lifestyle changes and also looking at other things like the environment.
I guess the purpose of my question is that we’re putting money towards identifying cancer and getting cases that are not previously detected into a treatment program. I think, speaking from a health professional perspective myself, it’s great to talk about issues, but by the same token, we have to identify people early on in the Cancer Strategy in order to create a wellness program with early detection. I’d appreciate if the Minister could get back to us in terms of what the breakdown is in the future. More of a comment.
My other question again has to earmark roughly what the Member from Weledeh indicated, that the Ministers Forum for Addictions for $300,000, as much as I do appreciate the fact that going to communities and exploring more effective approaches is critical, especially for recovery of addicts and alcoholics, I do have to question the amount. That is a fairly rich budget to do some travelling here. Could we get some clarification? What municipalities, what townships, what communities will be impacted during the spending of that $300,000?
The plan is to go to 50 percent of communities, 16 or 17 communities. We haven’t picked the communities yet. I think once we have our forum, that we’ve gone to the Members to ask them to provide us names of people who would work well in this forum, and then I think we’re going to go sit down with the forum and make a decision on which communities we would have to attend to have the greatest impact.
I do again appreciate the response. More detail in the future I think would probably be more appropriate for the Members here to understand exactly where these monies are going to be spent during the life of this budget.
Last but not least, I commend the department for again putting more money on the table for prevention and promotion. We’ve worked collectively hard, as Members of the Assembly, to expand these concepts into many of the different communities as we’ve mentioned in the House as well as today. Addictions and abuse doesn’t have an address. We’ve identified certain areas where these extra monies can go. I am a bit concerned that I don’t hear much about Yellowknife. Obviously, I’m a Member from Yellowknife and I’m sure my colleagues are also wondering. We suffer from various issues of abuse and addictions as well. Sometimes, by virtue of our urban placement, we’re a funnelling effect for a lot of the abuse and addictions that we see in the Territories. Can we get reassurances that when we’re looking at disparities, and looking at the distribution of dollars, that we’re looking at all aspects of all community-based programs in the future? If so, can we get some assurances that there’s some methodology and some financial acumen that goes with the prevention budget to make sure that urban centres are not forgotten? I am mentioning Yellowknife, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention places like Hay River and Inuvik as well. Can we get some reassurances that all communities, large and small, are being looked at when we’re doing expansions of prevention and promotion budgets such as this?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Miltenberger. I’m sorry.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The commitment is going to be, of course, for Health and Social Services to work with the Social Programs committee. This supp was pulled together as a result of a lot of work in the last number of days. The Members are asking for a lot of detail on things that we haven’t had a chance to really put our minds to, other than to agree to the global figure and the general areas where the money is going to be allocated. I’ll ask Minister Beaulieu if he wants to add further to that, but as we are with the Heritage Fund, and as we’ll have the discussion on the energy money, there’s a quantum global figure put in there, and the commitment is to work with committee to look at how that money and these funds are going to be allocated. I’ll ask Minister Beaulieu if he wants to add further to that, Madam Chair, with your indulgence.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I agree that just on pure numbers it’s highest in Yellowknife. On a percentage basis, they’re probably one of the lower communities that are suffering from addictions. Issues with addictions and mental health, and so on, are fairly high on a percentage basis in the small communities. The intention, though, is that if we go down the list here, there are fairly good supports within the city, as well, as it is in some of the regional centres, but especially here in the city where we have most of the doctors living. The Minister’s Forum on Addictions is a part of the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan, which a lot of the work in that action plan will affect the city of Yellowknife and the regional centres. Healthy Families, we’re expanding that. We have a Healthy Families program in Yellowknife and we’re expanding to other communities. We’re trying to go into every region.
The cancer work, as far as cancer screening, we are picking up 45 percent of cancer at stage 1 cancer. The majority of the good ability to screen cancer is in Yellowknife, not in the outlying communities. We’re trying to put a system in place so that we’re easily screening cancer outside of Yellowknife as well, but again, the doctors are here in Yellowknife and so on.
With the whole area of early childhood interventions and health and early childhood development and so on, again, lots of the services are here. We have lots of nongovernment organizations in the city. The city’s not being forgotten. We’re just trying to expand outside of the city to try to provide equal supports outside of the city. There is actually quite a bit of support here already, as far as a lot of nongovernment organizations and so on, we we’re trying to, kind of, provide a service outside that’s just not there right now. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Next, I have Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to follow up where I left off with the Minister’s Forum on Addictions and hark back to my original point at the same time. The Minister invited Members to nominate people to this forum and we were pleased to do so. That work has been on the go for some months now, and this new money was just identified in the last few days. I’m asking the Minister is this, sort of sleight of hand or fancy footwork, in fact eroding any tentative sense of trust that might have been developing between Cabinet and committee?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I’ve heard the sleight of hand phrase used several times in the House in last few weeks, and I think it really borders on unparliamentary because of the insinuation that might be imputing a motive about that, so maybe we should just be careful about the sleight of hand. Fancy footwork sounds a lot nicer. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Madam Chair. We’ve been dealing in good faith here with committee. This is new money. Everything we’ve done is here before the House and transparent. I’ll ask Minister Beaulieu if he wants to speak further to the Ministerial gathering that he’s got planned, but I appreciate your guidance, as well, in terms of going forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Like I said, the Minister’s Forum on Addictions makes up a part of the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan, which we’ll be tabling in the House tomorrow. We have had consultation with Standing Committee on Social Programs on that action plan. This $300,000 is what we think we need in order to carry out that portion of the action plan. I think that we’re here requesting that money. It’s not been spent. It’s not something where we’ve advised individuals that they would sit on the forum. If the Legislative Assembly decides not to approve this portion of the budget, then we’d probably develop the action plan without the forum.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate your comments on the term sleight of hand. I’d like to try and use that appropriately, because I do agree with your comments that it is kind of accusatory. This program, the Minister’s Forum on Addictions, was clearly in process as part of this year’s fiscal budget. We were participating in it. We had been invited to participate in it. We were participating in it. Committee recommended 900,000 new dollars for new programs. Cabinet has shifted that request and allocated those new dollars into old, existing programs. I’d like to know from the Minister why should this not be regarded as sleight of hand.
Somebody will have to give me a definition of what sleight of hand means. It sounds like trickery. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Madam Chair. For the purposes of this discussion, it was requested that we put more money back into Health and Social Services. We agreed to a number, 1.2 or so million dollars. The Minister of Health and Social Services has laid out where they would propose to spend that money, and we’re having the discussion today about the approval of the quantum number and new money that was being put into these different areas. We’ve talked about some of them already, the Heritage Fund, the emergency response money, and we’re going to talk about others in a bit here.
The Minister has indicated that if there are discussions and this particular proposal for this forum doesn’t go ahead, that money, unless it’s cut out of this supp by this Legislature, will stay in there and will be spent appropriately, pending the outcome of those discussions.
Once again, I’ll as the Minister of Health and Social Services if he can speak to the specific question about this forum was in the works before this money was voted and the Member is asking if, in fact, there is some untoward chicanery going on here or shell game that we’re moving money around, laundering it or whatever. I’m not sure what sleight of hand means, but it does impute that we’re doing something untoward that wouldn’t stand scrutiny, and I don’t think that’s the case. We are here with new money, but I’ll ask the Minister to speak further to that very specific question by Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The $300,000 is, in the opinion of the department, new money. It is not something that this is an action plan that we are developing now. Like I said, it will be tabled in the House tomorrow. Yes, it has been discussed with the committee. We think that this forms a very huge part of our Prevention and Promotion Strategy. It is one of the bigger parts, aside from the wellness plans and so on. We have some other stuff that is in the works, like the community wellness plans which are funded by the federal government, that we are working on now. This is something that we are intending to fund it internally by the GNWT. It was put in here because we consider it to be a big part of the prevention and promotion. It was not budgeted anywhere previously.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Bromley.
Madam Chair, I have a motion in preparation. I wonder if we can wait until we are done on this. What is the process here? Thank you.
What is the wish of the committee with respect to taking a brief recess while a motion is prepared for Mr. Bromley? What is the wish of the committee? Agreed?
Agreed.
We will have a short recess to allow that to take place. Thank you.
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Okay, committee members, when we took a brief recess, Mr. Bromley had the floor. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that $300,000 be deleted from the activity community health programs, operations expenditures.
---Interjection
Mr. Bromley has the floor. Order! Can we have order please? Mr. Bromley has the floor. Mr. Bromley.
Yes, that will be fine right now, Madam Chair.
Mr. Menicoche:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. This whole budgeting cycle, committee on this side worked really hard with Cabinet to institute some funding. We made our impact on the budget. Often this side, when we get some wins, like in particular this time we got I think here in Health and Social Services overall I think we got, that was not previously authorized, $1.267 million and it was hoped that we’d have a nice, good dialogue about how to allocate these resources. I think the feeling on this side is that government, in its infinite wisdom, is saying okay, there’s extra money so we’re going to spend it.
Well, that’s not how we see it, Madam Chair. When they say “we,” it’s different than our “we.” We as an Assembly, whereas we as Cabinet sometimes they get unfocused like that. So we’re a little bit upset on this side, Madam Chair, but I can say that the Member is upset enough that we can consider a motion to delete this particular line item of $300,000.
I can say that it’s not a line item; I was mistaken. The appropriation process speaks overall to $1.267 million, but I think it’s in the details where government is proposing an expenditure of $300,000’ for a Minister’s Forum on Addictions, and that’s something we certainly disagree with strongly because we never had our input.
The feeling is that we got the money as an Assembly, we didn’t get money for Cabinet. So it’s not up to them to be starting their own priorities. I think the priorities should be us and the Assembly, and working with committee as well.
So I’d like to ask the Minister of Finance or the Minister of Health to challenge us not to approve it if we didn’t like it, and we’re certainly prepared to do that, Madam Chair.
Okay, thank you. We are on supplementary appropriations, operations expenditures, Health and Social Services, community health programs, not previously authorized, $1.267 million. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Let me reassure the Legislature that what we’re voting on today is, as the Member for Nahendeh said, $1.267 million. There are two different pots: one for $900,000 and one for $367,000, and once that is voted, then there will be opportunities for discussion as there will be on the energy money, how do we move forward with that.
The Minister of Health was asked to look at putting more money into early childhood development. He’s come up with some suggestions. Clearly, what this House is voting on today is that global number and the commitment here is, as we go forward to our normal processes of committees working with the departments, we’ll have opportunities to resolve how that $1.267 is being spent.
There have been some areas that I sense agreement, the cancer screening and those type of things. On this one item, the hope would be that we will leave the money in the global figure and we’ll have that broad discussion going forward.
It’s not an attempt to pre-empt any input or involvement of committee. It was an attempt to lay out a proposed roadmap going forward for that money, listening to the strong debate about the essential nature of the early childhood investments. Thank you.
Thank you very much. I think that’s the type of dialogue we’re looking for – willingness – and not to say this is the way it’s going to be done. We worked hard for the last three weeks and it’s just that kind of openness and dialogue we’re prepared to continue on. It’s just that we need on record here today that if we’re not happy with this $300,000 ministerial forum, that government won’t proceed with it.
Thank you. The commitment is to that discussion, so that it’s clear what the final determination is going to be. Our commitment is to have that discussion. Our commitment is to hopefully keep all this money in the budget so that we can have the discussion; and if the money is gone, then it limits the discussion. If the money stays in the budget, then you have room to do other things. So our hope is similar to the Member for Nahendeh, that we have that discussion going forward to resolve this, but we need the resources collectively to do that together. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We have a dialogue and that’s what we’d like to hear, and I’m pleased to be moving forward with the supplementary discussions.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Department of Health and Social Services, operations expenditures, community health programs, not previously authorized, $1.267 million. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. It sounds like a good discussion and good consideration may be on its way here for these dollars. Just picking up on the Minister’s mention of early childhood development funding, the phenomena we are dealing with extends into that; for example, paying for child care inspection services. It was obviously a routine part of this government’s responsibilities and commitment under the Auditor General’s program. So I assume that his willingness to discuss this and have significant committee input extends to all new dollars. Is that correct? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just need clarification. As a matter of practice, we have the discussion about new money. The only reason we’re here is because of this discussion, that we did have to get agreement on this. We are going to be starting the business planning process where we will be having that renewed discussion, not only about new dollars but all existing programs. That’s a given as well. So, Madam Chair, I’m not quite clear what further assurance the Member is looking for.
Well, to be specific, early childhood development dollars, which have been found internally, some of which are being directed to inspection of child care facilities. This came out in the Auditor General’s report, where it was found that it was not doing proper inspections and not doing proper safety procedures. In fact, fire exits were blocked, and toxic chemicals were easily accessible by children and so on and demanded directive that the government respond to that. Now, somehow the new dollars we have achieved for early childhood allocation are being profiled as delivering that sort of routine government responsibility rather than being into new programs.
The dollars for energy initiatives, I don’t think there’s anything like that. The Minister said we could have a discussion on that. It’s odd that that is being parked during the summer season. So that discussion won’t take place until September, but at least there’s the grade point to be discussed there. That’s the sort of thing I was thinking of, Madam Chair.
Thank you. I would like to recognize the clock and rise and report progress, but I will allow Minister Miltenberger to first respond to this and then I will rise and report progress. Mr. Miltenberger.
Madam Chair, is it too late to make a motion that we extend to conclude the business before this House?
Yes, it is. Would you like to respond to Mr. Bromley? I am giving you an opportunity to do that.
