Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to send the Premier my most recent press release, and of course, I would be happy to walk over a copy of my Member’s statement. I am talking about the federal government spends $1.9 million every year to maintain this site. I am suggesting that we encourage them to package some money out of that. It wouldn’t be ongoing funding; it would be a balloon payment – think of it as that way – to encourage. If anyone could come up with a solution for the Giant Mine problem, they can come get the reward or balloon payment. Call it what you will. Quite frankly, it costs the GNWT nothing but a little energy and a little motivation to say we need this once and for all.
I ask the Premier, does he see possibilities in this opportunity, or does he just see it as status quo is the best way to do business. I’m not against freezing it. I’m just saying we need to be looking towards the future. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, as the Member knows, we always listen to suggestions from the other side, and we are able to do so again. I just need to know what it is that you are proposing. We can’t manage through press releases, so we would need something more definitive. The Member knows the process. We don’t respond to a single MLA. I think we would need a request from the committee. Obviously, if the committee requests us to seek this from the federal government and the committee supports it, we will do it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions today for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I would like to ask some questions of the Minister of a situation that occurred over the summer that caused me some concern. It was a communication issue.
Here at the Assembly we have communications protocols. We have a number of protocols, and communications is one of them. Usually they work. It gives Members from both sides of the House advance notice of things that are going to be happening.
I’m referencing the appointment of a new chief executive officer for Stanton Territorial Hospital. The fact that we hired a new CEO prior to the current CEO leaving was a really good thing and I was very pleased to see that, but I was extremely surprised that the press release announcing the hiring of Ms. Fitzgerald arrived to Regular Members at the same time that it went to the general public. In my mind, the Minister of Health and Social Services is ultimately responsible for all health authorities, for staff and so on. I have to assume that he surely knew that this announcement was coming. My mind then goes to why were MLAs not advised, if not all MLAs, at least Yellowknife MLAs, at least the Standing Committee on Social Programs.
I would like to ask the Minister what is the process for a health authority, whether it is a health authority with a board or a health authority with a public administrator, what is the process for them to communicate the hiring of their most senior employee to both the public and to the Minister? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The current process right now as it stands is that various health and social services authorities and the one agency is responsible for releasing information on hiring of the CEO for their authorities. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for that clarification. I’m quite surprised at that. We provide them, through the Assembly, the Minister provides money to health authorities for their operations. All the employees are employees of the Government of the Northwest Territories. I am really surprised that we allow these authorities to have that much autonomy. They certainly don’t in many other areas.
As I said, I think the Minister is ultimately responsible for these authorities. It seems to be the way that the legislation reads. I would like to ask the Minister when he was aware that the new CEO had been hired for Stanton Territorial Hospital. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I became aware of the name shortly before the press release had occurred. Unfortunately, during the time when the decision was being made, we were in Ulukhaktok at the Caucus meeting. From Ulukhaktok, I then went south immediately, and that press release occurred on the day that I travelled to southern Canada.
The information is not given to me until the decision is made. I knew that we were seeking a CEO. I knew that. The deputy kept me advised that they were interviewing individuals, and the process was that once the decision was made, I would be advised. At this time I was advised just prior to the press release, but I was not aware that the press release was going to be going out on that type of schedule. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Minister. I have to reiterate, I think the Minister knows the importance of health and social service authorities and the operations of our health and social services system to Regular Members and particularly for a Yellowknife facility like the hospital to Yellowknife Members. We live closest to that facility, so it is part of our community.
The Minister said that he knew the name but we were at Caucus. I think certainly there was an opportunity for him to advise the Members who were at least at Caucus that this was happening. There was an opportunity to send an e-mail to all Members to say this is going to be released soon.
I would like to know from the Minister why he basically bypassed our communications protocol. Does he really think that it should be up to health authorities to make this communication as opposed to himself? Thank you.
Yes, I do think it’s the responsibility of the board or the public administrator of the health authority to do a press release. The timing I guess is something that has to be sorted out. Obviously, it has caused some issue with the timing of the release. In the future when there are other CEOs that are being contemplated or hired in the various authorities, we can find a way added into the process to advise the MLAs, all MLAs or the Assembly. Usually that’s what we try to do. As I said, it’s just an unfortunate thing that had occurred. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thanks, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I do agree that it was unfortunate, and I don’t believe that it’s a situation that should happen again. I appreciate the Minister’s comments that maybe it shouldn’t happen again.
He’s suggesting that he’s going to set something in place. I’d like to know from the Minister when we can expect some communication from his office as to the new system that will be in place so this doesn’t happen again. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’m having a meeting with the JLC, Joint Leadership Council of all authorities, on the 13th and 14th. We’ll discuss it at that time. It should be soon after that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m just going to follow up from my Member’s statement today regarding homelessness. Of course, homelessness, you can’t really talk about it without including some of the mental health and addictions that are occurring with people who are in homeless situations.
I just wanted to follow up, and I know the Minister is getting a lot of questions today, specifically from members of the Standing Committee on Social Programs. I just wanted to remind him that when we had our retreat, that was our number one concern, our priority, and we want to follow up on that. We’re halfway through our session and we want to make sure this gets dealt with.
I had questions of my own, but listening to the responses to Member Dolynny, one answer that really sparked my interest was the Minister mentioned that a patient, a client can walk into a health centre, a hospital, and request medical detox and they’ll get it. I want to know, when a person goes into a health centre or hospital, how long are they able to stay in that hospital for and get a bed for detox. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was referring to medical detox possibility at the hospitals. My understanding is that earlier on, during questioning on medical detoxification at the hospital, we agreed we could provide beds in the hospital; but to keep a bed vacant in hospitals all year long on standby for that would not be appropriate. So any bed in acute care can be used for an individual to detoxify.
I don’t think the health centres in the small communities would be set up for that, but they could possibly do it. With the right nursing staff in place, they could possibly do something like that if an individual was in some sort of distress over detoxification. But my answer was more specifically to hospitals. Thank you.
I really enjoy dialogue with the Minister on services that we provide here in the Northwest Territories. Any bed in acute care that would be allocated for someone through detox, and if the Minister understands when a person goes through detox, all the implications that happen with that psychosis where they can be deathly.
Is this Minister willing to put someone going through extreme detox in the same bed as a public person who might only be in there for the flu? Can I ask the Minister, is he willing to support a bed in acute care for somebody going through extreme detox? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I’m not a health professional. That responsibility for placing an individual in one of the acute care beds for going through medical detoxification would be made by a physician. Thank you.
I just want to state that I know we come down hard on the Minister all the time, and it’s not only his responsibility. We deal with homelessness, mental health, and you deal with justice, employment, education, homelessness. As a matter of fact, he’s responsible for the facilities here in the NWT.
The Minister also mentioned treatments, in answering a Member on this side. He said that treatment happens fairly quickly.
Can he give me a definite response on what “fairly quickly” means? I’ve been dealing with some of my constituents and I’d say it’s been over a month already, so I’d like to ask the Minister what he means by fairly quickly, if he could give me a date, please.
I’ll talk a little bit about the original process. The original process was quite a long delay, where an individual had to be clean and sober and follow up with some community counselling, and then wait for the next intake into a treatment centre to go. Now, with the contracts that we have in the South that have continuous intake, I don’t think it’s every day but I think the intake is on a weekly basis, so every week new people wanting treatment come into the facility.
Our idea is once an individual comes into the system and requests treatment, that we try to bring them into the next intake at the closest intake possible that we can get them down there is what we are trying to achieve.
I was advised that people were going out at the latest within two weeks, so I didn’t know there were individuals waiting for a month since we had discontinued Nats’ejee K’eh. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
I think we could solve this issue a little easier going forward here, and it all stems down to the written questions I had raised this summer during our last session, and that’s dealing with the Mental Health Act.
Can the Minister look at trying to speed that review up and looking at the Mental Health Act and how we can get that addressed so we don’t always have to be asking these same questions? Mental health actually takes care of the different legislative property. Can we see that speeded up during this Assembly? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the target for finalization of the legislative proposal for the Mental Health Act review is for the winter of 2014. I’m hoping that’s early winter and not late winter 2014. If that’s not the case, then I will report back to the Member. My understanding is it’s early winter 2014. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would also like to follow up from my earlier Member’s statement with questions to the lead Minister for the Anti-Poverty Strategy, Mr. Abernethy.
As I mentioned in my statement today, my constituents are telling me that our social safety net contains poverty traps. Some of the rules make it very difficult for people to access the help they need.
I’d like to start by asking the Minister, first of all, what is the current status of the Anti-Poverty Strategy Action Plan. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister responsible for poverty, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The framework was released earlier this calendar year, and the government and Cabinet have been working on an action plan to respond to that framework. We have shared that draft with committee and we are working on the committee’s responses to it to improve that plan as we move forward.
In the meantime, we’ve funded the No Place for Poverty Coalition to have a roundtable of their own to start working on individual responses to the report so we can all come together in November. November 28th and 29th are the dates that have been confirmed for our territorial group to come together and work on a territorial response to poverty. So it’s important that we all work together, that we’re working with the NGOs, and also working across departments, because it’s going to take everybody to deal with poverty in the North. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate the Minister is seeking support or input from the wider community on this and that he’s committed towards moving things forward towards implementation of the action plan.
The poverty traps I mentioned have been discovered by people trying to access the system. Obviously, these constituents are not policy analysts, but their experience highlights the need to research such policy issues and propose solutions. So can the Minister say how the action plan will tackle these needs?
Thank you. The Ministers responsible for the social envelop have continued to have conversations on how we can bring the departments together to work more effectively together. In the development of our action plan, which we’ve shared with committee, the draft action plan, we worked really hard to make sure that we’re using common language and where there was certain crossover between initiatives like the Economic Opportunities Strategy and Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan that the Minister is coming forward with, as well the Early Childhood Development Framework and Action Plan, as well as the good work that the Housing Corp has been doing. We’ve tried to ensure that all of that was incorporated within our territorial response, our GNWT response. But it’s more important than just having a response; it’s actually working together. The Social Envelope Committee of Ministers has been having conversations around this and has been directing our departments to find ways to actually break down some of the silos and work together. We continue to do that and we will continue to do that.
We also are always looking for examples, and the Member has provided me with a number of examples of where we’ve had some obvious breakdowns between different departments and some of the programs and we’re looking to find remedies to that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The Minister has very correctly depicted this as a cross-departmental dilemma. Clearly focused attention is needed on these conflicting cross-departmental policies that entrap people in poverty, as the Minister has said.
Will the Anti-Poverty Action Plan include funding or dedicated personnel, almost an ombudsman sort of a person, to research and suggest solutions to poverty traps like these and other policy dilemmas as they come up? Thank you.
An anti-poverty coordinator has been hired with an effective date of October 21, 2013. This individual coordinates territorial action plans, provides advice and recommendations to the GNWT on any ongoing initiatives that support the priorities in the frameworks, and identify areas for collaboration actions to advance the priorities of the framework among all of our partners, including GNWT departments and NGOs. This position will also review annual results of the GNWT partner actions and complete results reports and report progress on broad social indicators. So the answer is yes.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I don’t see a coordinator as being what I’m talking about here. Policy analysts are a very specific breed of cat and they have a specific focus and they get into the intricate examples of conflicting policies and weigh out the solutions. So I’m wondering: Has the work to date profiled issues such as these, other than a few examples provided by my colleagues and myself? What mechanism is being contemplated to ensure these policy conundrums are captured and brought forward for resolution so they don’t recur? I don’t think, again, a coordinator is what we’re talking about. Mahsi.
It’s a title. The coordinator is a title. This individual will be reviewing policies across departments that are coming under this Anti-Poverty Action Plan and making sure that they’re moving forward. The larger responsibility, obviously, belongs to the individual Ministers and the Social Envelope Committee of Ministers to make sure that departments are working together, and each department has their own policy unit who can do analysis. So this coordinator will play an important role in analyzing and making recommendations on where these barriers tend to, or may, exist. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today in my Member’s statement, I was speaking about the Department of Health and Social Services pretty much stripping community authority over the Deh Cho Health and Social Services in my region. I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services what is going on here and what is the plan for the community. Originally when the board was not reappointed, the intent there was to reassess and evaluate and improve programs and services, but now we’re going to lose governing power over our board. I don’t think that was the intent and it’s not the intent of my communities to support that.
So I’d like to know what is the plan for Deh Cho Health and Social Services. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this point the plan for the Deh Cho Health and Social Services Authority is to remain with the public administrator – myself and the public administrator spoke – for at least two years in order to do some of the work that we think is necessary, some of the issues that we’re dealing with in the Deh Cho Health and Social Services. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Certainly, there were some issues there, like elders continuing to be sent home with aspirins instead of getting proper checkups. There was another instance of an incomplete and misdiagnosed elder who broke her wrist and wasn’t diagnosed for months. So I know that the public administrator was just put in place, but what is the plan to improve the programs and services for Deh Cho health and social services at this point? Thank you.
Thank you. The plan is to do consultation with the communities in the Deh Cho. One of the things that may have been misconstrued was the intent to try to provide better medical service to three of the communities in the Deh Cho by providing that medical service out of Hay River. The social services side of all of the Deh Cho, including the Hay River Reserve, Fort Providence and Kakisa where we are contemplating providing medical services out of Hay River as opposed to out of Fort Simpson, will all remain with the Deh Cho communities. So social services side of it, there will be no change in who is providing the service. Now we’re trying to figure out how Hay River can provide medical service to the three communities geographically closer to Hay River than they are to Fort Simpson. Thank you.
The communities certainly want to have these consultations, they want to be advised, they want to be involved. But at the same time, rumours continue to persist. Improving services like providing better services to the communities surrounding Hay River and using their facilities certainly makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is removing the power and control over the Deh Cho Health and Social Services. So what is the plan there and will the Minister address that?
Thank you. In all honesty, there was an idea at some point to increase the role in Hay River in the management of some of the Deh Cho communities. However, that was not accepted. It was something that we discussed for a very short time period and that was something that the communities in the Deh Cho did not accept. The new public administrator that was appointed to replace the board did not accept that, based on his discussions with the leadership in the Deh Cho. So we are not planning on rolling Deh Cho Health and Social Services under the Hay River authority.
In Hay River we will provide some support to Deh Cho Health and Social Services under the Hay River authority. In Hay River we will provide some support to Deh Cho Health and Social Services because currently Deh Cho Health and Social Services doesn’t have a CEO and neither does Hay River, so we’re moving some people around within our system to support all of the authorities. Specifically, we’re trying to provide some of the support from Hay River as well as Yellowknife to the Deh Cho region.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m pleased to hear that that was just a bird’s eye view and that they’re not going there. Once again, Mr. Minister had travelled with me earlier in the year to the Nahendeh communities, and I would like to continue to invite him to complete the tour. Then I think we may have to make an extended tour again, because people do want to hear more about Deh Cho Health and Social Services, they want the programs and services to improve.
So will the Minister come with me on a tour, and as well as a plan with his department of addressing consultations with the communities as well?
