Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to continue my questions from yesterday with the Minister of Health and Social Services on addictions and, more importantly, the closing of the Nats’ejee K’eh Residential Treatment Centre.
It’s clear that this Assembly and the people at large have a Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan for 2012-2015, which we were told were the guiding principles, or I guess the compass points, if you will. We waited meticulously for many months for the Minister’s Forum on Addictions. That’s on one side of the equation.
All the while, what’s happened on the other side of the equation is the fact that we now lost our only residential treatment facility. We’ve received, in this House, quasi responses with respect to whether or not we now have detox beds. Now we’ve got interim contracts that will expire March 31, 2014, with four southern contractors that are supposed to represent and solve our problems in the interim, and we have no idea what those costs are and the standby costs for those.
All the while we’ll have a Minister and department that have compass headings. They’ve got a compass unit on their dash, but I’m not sure if that thing is plugged in, because it’s definitely giving us some mixed reviews here, as we’ve heard in the last day or so.
My first question is, is that it’s well documented that the Minister of Health met with the board of directors of Nats’ejee K’eh on March 26th of this year. The Minister requested that this board of Nats’ejee K’eh produce a detailed business plan to consider the range of programs and services, its staffing and its staffing needs, and incorporating more of an Aboriginal culture component. Did the Minister receive this business plan? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We received some documentation from the board, and that’s something that we could move forward with. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I can assure you that there was a business plan that was produced. We know because committee on this side of the House has received this plan. It’s a very detailed plan, a very good plan, as far as I’m concerned.
The question that we’re hearing is that we’ve got parts of the plan, yet we were given a full plan, so it doesn’t quite make sense.
My question, with respect to this plan, if there was this plan given as a result, as I indicated that we did receive on this side of the House, why was the funding still cut? What was wrong with this plan?
Regardless of how good the Member thinks the plan was or what we thought of the plan, the bottom line was that one counsellor, one person to do counselling for all the people that were supposed to go there, that only one person was in the position there to help the people who were going there for treatment. The board themselves, through the executive director, had indicated that she thought there was a safety issue here. To continue on to have intake of people into Nats’ejee K’eh with only one counsellor was a problem, and this created a safety issue not only for the counsellor but for the people coming in for counselling. It was the executive director that approached the board that said, I think it’s time to shut down Nats’ejee K’eh. At that point, we took action and we cut the funding effective September 30th this year. Thank you.
Now we’re getting into some of the details, which is good. We’ve been waiting for this for a while.
My interpretation of the plan is my interpretation. I’m assuming anyone on this side of the House who read the plan, as well, would have their own views. We know the department has their own views and I think the public might have their own views. So would the Minister like to enlighten us and maybe table this plan for everyone to see, because, quite frankly, Nats’ejee K’eh is closed, so what harm would that do?
Mr. Speaker, I guess I can talk to some of the individuals. I do believe that the board is now non-functioning. The properties that they presented to us, I don’t know who has the ownership of it. I don’t know whether or not I would be allowed to table a document such as that. If I can, I would be glad to do it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, it sounds like we’re going to have to do another ATIPP request, and thank God I’ve been collecting bottles all summer because this seems to be the pattern of activity here for Regular Members.
I guess we’ve heard from the Minister that he’s going to go back and talk to a defunct board that no longer exists, to ask permission to table something that is in the ownership of the department.
Again, will the Minister commit to tabling this for everybody to see what was the action plan of the Nats’ejee K’eh and how unsafe, really, was it?
Mr. Speaker, I’m not asking anybody to request information to go through an ATIPP request for information. What I said was if I’m allowed to table a report or a business plan that’s been presented to me by a board that’s now defunct, I would be pleased to do it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
