Again, I don’t believe the Housing Corporation or the LHOs are double-dipping into the income. We do go by gross income while they’re employed and then once they’re unemployed, then we would use whatever benefits they may be getting from unemployment insurance.
As far as the Child Tax Credit goes, again, it’s to provide for the basic necessities of life, and shelter is usually number one on the list.
I would like it if the Minister would come to the Sahtu and come to Deline and explain this process here as simply as possible to the people in Deline on this issue here. They still feel that they are being double-dipped by the Housing Corporation and that that’s not fair.
I’ll ask the Minister if he would make a commitment to come to Deline and explain this process to the people in Deline.
Before all these rents went into place, there was a lot of discussion between the LHO tenant relations officer and the clients to explain the situation. We can have staff go in there again. I have tried a couple of times to travel with the Member into the Sahtu, and I would be willing to go possibly again into the Sahtu after Christmas or after the New Year. But my preference would be to have staff, who know a lot more about how rent is being calculated, explain to the residents of Deline and the Sahtu, and I would be present, too, if things work out the way they should. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about the need to support first responders. I was really highlighting about the importance in the communities, how they need that type of support. Without those first responders, whether you are in Ulukhaktok, Gameti or, certainly, Lutselk’e, first responders provide a critical role. If they are untrained, they put themselves as well as the person they are trying to help at great risk.
Knowing that every community deserves some type of support, is the Minister of Health aware in some manner or such of what type of program exists to help support training for first responders from the Department of Health point of view? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are various programs available to train first responders. The Government of the NWT has developed an interdepartmental advisory committee that is actually led by MACA that includes the Department of Justice, Department of Transportation, and Health and Social Services. We are looking at all of the various areas to see what would be the best way to provide that type of training to possible first responders in the communities. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’m glad to hear that there is an interdepartmental committee. This is actually the first time I have heard of this particular case. This issue has been brought forward to me by a particular person who is very familiar with the communities and said that as such, as I mentioned, Kirk Hughes had to step up to the plate where there were gaps.
What can the Minister of Health and Social Services do to help step up to the plate on this particular issue to demonstrate some leadership in communities where we don’t have first responders but we have equipment, so if an incident does happen, we have people who have skills and abilities who can respond properly and safely? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, like I said, we are looking at that. We need to cost the whole project out. It would be a fairly expensive proposition, because inside the first responders, we are also talking about how we get to the individual, and that would mean ground ambulance. We are also talking about remote areas where it’s not coming by highway and how we’re going to be able to respond to that as well.
We need to examine this. We need to develop some cost implications to our decisions and then move forward from there. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I look for clarification on the official record from the Minister. By all means, I really hope I’m wrong on this particular case, but I have been informed that community health nurses at their health stations have no ability to leave their station to provide health care if there’s an incident on the highway or within close proximity. Maybe the Minister could help shed some light on that particular case. If it is a rumour out there or misinterpretation, maybe he can help put that to rest. The fact is we want to make sure people are helping.
Are nurses hamstrung or nurse practitioners not allowed to offer services and help in incidences? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, that is an issue, there is no doubt about it. We don’t have the nurses that can go out to a site. If there is an accident or anything right now, the nurses are not the people that end up at the site. I think it has happened in the past, but there are some barriers to nurses going out, leaving their stations to go out to an accident site or a location or to somebody who may be very sick. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have been quite fortunate as I’ve grown up and had many courses and training, and offered training as an instructor for first response types of techniques. I have even had the few occasions of waiting out in the Mackenzie to help people who have been in serious jeopardy. But I couldn’t have done that without these types of skills through St. John Ambulance and Royal Life Saving Society and many other types of support mechanisms along the way. The reason I describe it that way is, without that type of support and confidence, you can’t just do that.
What can the Health Minister do today and not allow this problem be governed by committee, because we all know what that means. What can the Minister do today to help support small communities who have equipment, who want to do the right thing? Let’s see how we can empower them. What type of leadership can the Minister provide on this issue? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, this particular situation has occurred recently and has occurred in the past. We’ve responded to it in various ways. Right now there is no actual requirement for a nurse to go out and go onto the site of an accident, for example. We will, as a department, deal with this situation, because we would like to be able to respond as well. This is why we are looking at a possible way of trying to develop some first responders in the community that can do that work for us. We will work with the authorities and give direction to the authorities to work with our interdepartmental advisory committee to be able to do that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I just want to follow up on my Member’s statement on the idea of transitional housing for our small and remote communities. I would like to ask the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, firstly, to explain the purpose of the one-year residency requirement to access housing programs. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not sure if the Member is referring to one year to access public housing programs or the home ownership program. I am pretty sure the Public Housing Program, the residency requirement is set by the LHOs. As far as the home ownership program, that is set by the NWT Housing Corporation. That is set so we could have long-term Northerners be first in line for accessing some of our programs. So if somebody moves here a month before one of the programs, they would have to wait for a year before accessing any of the home ownership programs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I think a guideline like that certainly works well in a larger community where people are on a waiting list. It probably has happened in the past where people did get bumped by somebody new moving in. That really makes sense there, but for people returning to and coming to live in the smaller communities where housing is scarce or there is none, that same one-year residency requirement just doesn’t work, because there are no homes there. We are expecting them to perhaps couch surf for a year until they become eligible to come back.
Will the Housing Corporation look at this idea on providing transitional housing for people returning to small and remote communities? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons Housing has been able to implement a lot of these new programs is because we listened to the rent scale review or the…(inaudible)…policy review to a lot of the suggestions that were made out there. This is one that I will commit to the Member that I will go and have discussions with the corporation, because the Member raises a good point about returning back to the community if you are a resident to that community.
Again, those communities with the LHOs are usually set by the LHO. If they have vacant units, I am sure they may look at special situations such as that. If they have vacant units, there’s no point keeping them vacant.
I will commit to the Member that in the case of his riding, we will have a look at the residency requirement. I think a couple of his communities don’t have LHOs, so those are set by the NWT Housing Corporation. I will commit to the Member that I will have a discussion with the Housing Corporation on this particular issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to hear that the Minister is being flexible about the small and remote communities where an idea such as transitional housing can work. That idea did come from the chief of the Jean Marie River First Nation.
At this time I’d like to invite the Minister to accompany us during our Nahendeh tour to the community of Jean Marie, and we can discuss this idea, and see if we can make it work, and if we can pick that community as a pilot project, so to speak. Thank you.
Thank you. One of the problems we face in some of the smaller communities is there are not as many transitional opportunities as there are in some of the larger centres, and I think we have to have a look at that. Again, I say if we have units in the communities that are vacant, public housing units, and we’re asking somebody to wait a year, we’d have to review that, and I think we’d have to review some of these on a case-by-case basis to see where we can best assist. There may be some other reasons why folks are not in these houses or in public housing. But I will commit to the Member – and I heard the same thing from the chief yesterday about his concerns with his community – that I would like to pay a visit to Jean Marie as part of our Nahendeh tour. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated in my speech, Hay River and the Hay River area are seeing an extreme storm right now. My question today will be for the Minister of Transportation.
Can the Minister give me an update on the Hay River area and how they’re keeping up with the storms to date?
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The last report that I’ve got from the South Slave and Hay River was that the airport was open today, flights were operating out of the Hay River Airport today, and that’s a real testament to the staff – Kelly O’Connor, the airport manager, and the staff at the Hay River Airport – that have worked long, hard hours dealing with the snow.
On the highway front, we’ve had every piece of equipment in the area. We’ve called in the Buffalo River camp to assist as well. We’ve had off-hour crews called in. So we’ve had every piece of equipment out on the roads, working the best that we can to keep the roads safe and clear of the snow that Hay River has experienced; Enterprise, as well, and other areas in the South Slave. So we’ve done a lot of hard work, and I think the crews in the area are to be commended for the hard work and the effort they’ve put into clearing the roads and keeping the airport open in Hay River as well. Thank you.
Thank you. I, too, appreciate the hard work by the department and all the organizations that are trying to clean up the area.
My next question is: Does the department expect bringing in any additional equipment from other regions to aid the Hay River and Enterprise area? Thank you.
We’ve brought in an extra I believe it was a plough truck from the Buffalo River camp. So far today it looks like the snow has abated. But as needed, I believe if we are hit with another episode of snow and heavy snowfall in the area, we do have equipment in other places in the South Slave and, if need be, that would be called into action. Thank you.
Thank you. My final question to the Minister will be about the department’s added hours. Does the department continue to have additional hours on a regular basis in the wintertime as opposed to the demands where they would be less in the summertime? Does the department have longer hours for operation for the highway equipment operations in the wintertime? Thank you.
I thank the Member for the question. Yes, we do and we’ve advanced with the winter schedule for the Enterprise camp already. The other camps I’d have to check on, but I do know that we’ve gone to a winter schedule for maintenance with the Enterprise camp. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I spoke of the story of Allisdair Leishman, as presented in the media, and his apparent lack of physiotherapy care. Can the Minister of Health and Social Services verify that long-term care patients in general received, indeed, two hours a week and not two hours a month for such care? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We don’t have long-term care patients in the hospital, but my understanding is that we might be talking about patients in extended care.
Right now I understand that basically what happens is that it’s based on clinical need. So the clinical need for an individual in long-term care is they get two hours’ worth of physio per week, and then they’ll get two hours’ worth of physio per week. If there’s a requirement, only two hours per month, then that’s what they get. It’s based on a clinical need of the patient. Thank you.
Thank you. I appreciate the Minister clarifying. I think the concern of many is that the existing level of rehabilitation services offered at Stanton is the issue. I’ve had many professionals from there indicate that being limited to two hours of services for in-patients is, as they say, make what you can make of it.
The system is failing here. It appears that outpatients – WSCC, DND, RCMP and auto insurance clients – are given urgent status over in-patients. The solution is very simple: prioritize your high-level, extended health or long-term care in-patients versus your non-urgent outpatients. Will the Minister of Health and Social Services commit to this simple fix to help prioritize in-patient care over outpatient care at Stanton Hospital? Thank you.
Thank you. The outpatients are not given priority over in-patients. Again, all patients are prioritized. There are more outpatients, there’s no question about that. People in the hospital, mostly the extended care people, are receiving physiotherapy from one physiotherapist and we have seven physiotherapists that are doing the outpatients. So based on clinical need and also given priorities given to patients who are unable to go back to work because of issues where they would need some physiotherapy in order to get back into the workforce, but they’re not given priority over in-patients.
Thank you. Consistency of delivering health care across the North is paramount. Establishing the proper protocols for priority care is extremely vital.
Would the Minister of Health and Social Services commit to a complete NWT overhaul of the health care delivery in long-term care, extended care programs, which would establish the proper rehabilitation, prioritization tools and using evidence-based testing means? Thank you.
Thank you. I would commit to a complete overhaul of the system, but we are looking at all of the areas, including this area. Like I indicated in the House many times, we’re looking at what it takes to keep patients in their home as long as possible before they go into long-term care. When they’re in long-term care, then we provide some physio. When they’re in extended care, we provide some physio and so on. So there are some things being done.
There are some gaps, there’s no question about it, and so we’re looking at the whole system to make sure that we can fill the gaps. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My emphasis here is on consistency. We have here at the Hay River hospital, they use evidence-based testing for their prioritization schedule. Stanton Hospital does not. My ask is quite simple. Can we provide or will the Minister commit to look at an overhaul so that we have consistency from hospital to hospital, from long-term care to long-term care as we proceed with the 17th Assembly? Thank you.
Thank you. Yes, we’d like to provide the same care to the people that have the same clinical needs. So if the clinical needs in one hospital are the same as the clinical needs in another hospital, then the care will be provided on an equal basis. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said in my statement, my questions are today for the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. As I said in my statement today, I’m amazed at how few of the concerns, so clearly expressed at the hearings, have been reflected in the proponent’s closing letter to the environment board. The commentary persists in the delusion that this is a remediation rather than a stabilization. Its silence on major concerns almost amounts to contempt towards the input of organizations and individuals. This government signed the letter, so I ask, given the passion and details of concerns presented, how can the Minister defend the statement that the remediation plan is not the source of concerns regarding the Giant Mine cleanup?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do recognize that this whole project, and all the steps taken and everything proposed are a subject of great debate and there is no unanimity. There is a requirement, at the end of the day, to make the best decisions possible to try to move this project forward, remediate the site and get the job done on an issue that has been with us now for, literally, decades.
