Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize a couple of Pages who have been working very hard for us for about the last three weeks now and one more week to go. Chris Yurris from Frame Lake and Raya Laframboise from Frame Lake are working with us here today.
I also would like to recognize a good friend and old friend – not old in age, of course – Besha Blondin. Welcome to the House.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize two legislative Pages that have been here for about a week from my riding. From K'atlodeeche Chief Sunrise School, Talia Martel, who is 12 years old and in Grade 8. Her favourite school subjects are English, math and science. Her hobbies are reading, listening to music, and visiting with family and friends. Talia’s education goals are to graduate and go to university and get her Bachelor of Science, get into a medical field and become a doctor.
Brooklyn Cayen is 13 years old, in Grade 8, and was born and raised on the Hay River Reserve. She loves math and algebra, reading and writing, and likes experimenting with science. Her hobbies are reading, cooking, skateboarding and listening to music with friends. Brooklyn is also interested in getting a Bachelor of Science degree and becoming a doctor.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize a couple of hardworking Pages that have been here with us from my riding in Inuvik, Faith Rogers and Keenan Jacobson. They have been doing a really great job and I’m really glad that they had this experience here in the Legislative Assembly.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize a friend of our family, Mr. Jeremy Bird, who works for CKLB, a resident of Yellowknife. Not in my riding, but welcome, Jeremy.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize my cousin Besha Blondin. It’s good to see family sitting above me.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. You said it so well; it’s good to see family here in the House. I have former MLA Mr. Vince Steen’s daughter here, Shannon Steen, my cousin from Tuktoyaktuk. It’s good to see Shannon in the House today.
I have Loretta Elias accompanying Shannon here today. Welcome to the House.
I’d like to welcome the Page for this week, one of my little cousins there, Keenan Jacobson. He’s doing a real good job here this week. Thank you so much. Ms. Rogers, as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement, the Auditor General has noted that Health and Social Services did not have a territory-wide strategy to manage and prevent diabetes. That is part of the Chronic Disease Management Model which was due to be implemented this year. I’d like to ask the Minister has that happened and, if not, when will this be implemented.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. The department is working with the health authorities to run a couple of pilot projects. We’re running a pilot project here, a pilot project in the Sahtu on diabetes, and we’re hoping that from reviewing the results of the pilot project, we’re going to be able to expand diabetes programs across the territory.
I thank the Minister for that. I’ll be interested to hear the results of those pilot projects. There are clinical practice guidelines for diabetes. How do we monitor whether health authorities are following these guidelines and how do we know if our efforts to control diabetes are working? What kind of monitoring do we have?
As the Member indicated, clinical practice guidelines are used to determine how we are treating diabetes. I don’t have the monitoring information here with me, but I do know that we get information on where the diabetes is across the Territories, the prevalence of diabetes from region to region.
Managing and preventing chronic diseases is a major issue for our health system. Diabetes is only one of our problems. What still needs to be done before a full Chronic Disease Management Model is ruled out and what are the obstacles to that rollout?
In 2011-2012 the department worked on the Home Care Enhancement and Aboriginal Diabetes Initiative. We spent $77,500 on that initiative to develop a Chronic Disease Strategy, and diabetes is a part of the overall Chronic Disease Strategy which includes cardiovascular and cancer.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
That’s okay. Thank you.
The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The weather is getting colder outside and I think it’s only prudent that we take a look at all our emergency actions both in-house and community and as a territory. For that, today my questions will be for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs on the theme of emergency preparedness.
My first question is: Back in April of 2012 while we were doing the business plans and main estimates, the Minister of MACA reported that seven community governments had completed their fire assessments and that at March 31st of this year that number increased to 24. Through a series of questions, we were given some direction that there would be a potential completion of all 33 communities. So my question to the Minister is: Where are we at with respect to the fire assessments?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As of September 21st we’ve had 28 of the 33 communities that have updated their fire assessment plans and we’re trying to work with the other five to have their assessment done as quickly as possible.
It’s pleasing to see that we’re getting to the completion of all 33 communities in what is very, very important here. Leading to my second question on the subject of hazard assessments, these are basically high-level scenarios in terms of where we have communities at risk. Can the Minister indicate as to if all hazard assessments have been performed in all 33 communities?
As part of working with the communities on their emergency preparedness plan, hazards would be identified and we’d work closely with those communities to try and see how we can work around those and have them best prepared to handle any emergencies that might come about. We’ve got about 12 communities that have fully updated their emergency plans. We have 18 that need a little bit of updating, we’re working with them. We still have three communities that are without emergency plans and we have to work very closely with them to ensure that they get plans put into place.
The Minister is kind of leading into my third question, which is the overarching complement of what’s called your Emergency Action Plans. The Minister did give the number, I believe, of 18.
Can the Minister indicate to me as to who is actually doing those Emergency Action Plan assessments? Is it the communities themselves or is it the fire marshals or a designate from the government who are doing those?
The fire assessments are done by our assistant fire marshals that are out in every region. They go into the communities and work with the communities to identify their needs and training opportunities. As far as emergency planning goes, we go in and work with communities to assist them in putting together their emergency plans. As far as the emergency plan goes, the community usually is the lead on that and MACA is support.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It does appear that we’re actually moving in the right direction with respect to the safety of our communities and proper emergency action plans.
Can the Minister indicate in his crystal ball of items to be completed during the term of the 17th Assembly, when we would be able to see the completion of these so-called emergency action plans throughout the territory?
It is our goals, and I think we’re starting to see the effects of different types of emergency today that some communities may have not seen in the past. As I pointed out before, we have 12 communities that have updated plans and we have to work very closely with those 18 communities to update their plans. They do have plans, but we just need to update them. The three without, I mean, we’ll have to basically get on their case to make sure that they ask us to come in and help them work out their emergency plans.
It would be our desire by this time next year to have all 33 communities with a concrete plan.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Health and Social Services. I found it very timely that he chose to make his Minister’s statement today on the Minister’s Forum on Addictions. I have some questions in that regard.
I’ve been listening to the Minister over the last few weeks. He’s made some comments and he’s referenced a number of times consultations around mental health and addictions programs and the strategic plan. He’s spoken of a group that is out for consultations and it’s clear to me now, although it wasn’t before, that he meant the Minister’s Forum on Addictions.
The forum has been referenced in the Mental Health and Addictions Plan, but there’s little other info that’s out there relative to the Minister’s Forum on Addictions.
My first question to the Minister would be whether or not there are terms of reference for the forum, and if so, are they available to the public.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, we have terms of reference and, yes, they are available to the public.
That will teach me to ask a yes or a no question. It would be very helpful if the Minister could advise the House and advise the general public how they could access these terms of reference which are available to them.
The other point I wanted to make is that over the years, certainly my few years here but in many years prior, the shelves of government offices are filled with reports, with consultations, results of talking to people, et cetera, et cetera. Certainly, I know that Health and Social Services, that department has done many studies and looked into, and they have many reports on mental health and addictions.
I’d like to know from the Minister why we now need a Minister’s Forum on Addictions. We have lots of studies out there. Why can we not use the information we’ve previously gathered? Have we not already asked and answered the questions this forum is going to ask?
I’m not sure that we’ve asked the right questions. As I indicated in my Member’s statement, I think we needed to go back out to the communities. At the very beginning of my position as Health and Social Services Minister, I travelled to, I think, 12 or 13 communities with an attempt to try to travel to all the communities in the North, and a common theme was developing in the communities, and the communities were indicating that they need to find a solution for their addiction issues in their communities. With that in mind, we’ve developed this forum to go back out to those people to see if they do have the solutions, and they’re going to provide that information to the forums.
I appreciate that maybe we haven’t asked the right questions, but I guess I have to go back to the information that we already have. Has the Minister done an analysis of all the reports which have been done over, say, the last 10 years, which would be full of answers to probably very similar questions? It makes me wonder what is so different about this particular forum, about the questions that we’re answering right now. Do we know that we have not asked these specific questions before?
I guess there are various ways that a department can go about collecting information and the most recent information in the field of addictions, things do change. There are up and down issues and trends on addictions and so on.
The main thing that we want to focus in on is alcohol. This is an alcohol forum. There is no indication to me from the Department of Health and Social Services that we had reports specific to the state of alcohol in the communities. We felt that right now is a good time to go out there and gather that information and see what the people have to say about how they wish to work in this area. There was no indication that the people were asked in the past on what they would do to combat the issue of alcohol in their communities.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I struggle with the fact that we’re going to go and ask people. The Minister says that we don’t really know the state of alcohol. I think we know all too well the state of alcohol in our communities. I think that we need to actually start doing something. I’d like to know from the Minister, come March 2013, when he’s got all these answers, what is he going to do in March 2013 to actually implement and start acting on our addictions problem.
When we get the information back from the communities, when the communities tell us that this is the solution, then we’re going to assume that those are going to be the solutions. One of the best ways that I found in my past to come up with a solution is to go ask where the problem is. This is what we’re doing. We’re going back to the communities and we’re asking them to come up with a solution. I think it’s worked in the past when this type of thing has been requested of the communities and the communities want to come up with the solutions. Once the recommendations, I guess we’ll call it at this time, are before us, then we’re going to take a look at reshuffling some of our budget.
Right now we’re spending $6 million in community counselling, we’re spending $2.2 million in a treatment centre that has a capacity under 50 percent. What we’re doing so far doesn’t seem to be really panning out for the people. Addictions are not changing. Addictions are, I think, increasing. Now we want to say, well, you give us a solution, you give us a recommendation, we’ll try to develop a solution together to bring that addictions issue down.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I spoke about the value of income assistance programs in the Northwest Territories. My question is to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
In terms of where people are at in terms of trying to get the income assistance, asking for help is a big decision for people to make and whatever people might have is to try and maintain their pride. My question is: How does the department ensure that its employees treat income assistance clients with respect and consideration?
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Member for that particular question, because it has been addressed to my attention as the Minister responsible for the income security framework how the clients are treated by income security officers, client service officers. Due to that fact, we’ve initiated training for client services officers. I believe that’s coming up either this month or early next month on how to professionally deal with the clientele. We are very serious about our satisfaction of how we service those individuals, the clients, and we’ll make every effort to deal with that matter. If there are any issues from the clientele, please inform our department. We are following through with that. I am glad the Member is raising that issue. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
