Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My first question will be to the Minister responsible for disabilities. In 2012 the NWT Disabilities Council asked for an update on the NWT Action Plan for Disabilities. Part of their launch of the action plan originally identified a hundred concerns and they were further refined down to five particular themes. Of course, things like education, employment, income, and disability supportive housing were the themes that they had refined them down to.
The question to the Minister is: When will there be a progress report on the success of that action plan and when will we see it either tabled in this House or tabled publicly for us to move forward on this initiative? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The departments have taken a number of actions to address a number of recommendations that were in that report. The Department of Health and Social Services, as an example, has included a number of the recommendations in many of the different strategies were dealing with, like early childhood development. But I’d be happy to pull together a summary of what we’ve done with respect to each of the action items in the different areas within the department and I will certainly work with the other departments to pull that together.
We probably won’t be able to get that done in the next four days, but I will commit to having that available for the future government and the new Members coming in early in the life of the next Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I certainly appreciate that answer. In 2014 the NWT Disabilities Council decided on their own initiative to conduct their own territory-wide survey. So, they reached out to clients, caregivers and certainly professionals obviously connected to disabilities. Their survey reached out to more than 320 people in all communities but one.
My question for the Minister of Health and Social Services is: What is the Department of Health doing with that valuable survey information gathered by the NWT Disabilities Council, and are they able to put it into some type of use and action, because it is incredibly important information. Thank you.
I’ve reviewed that, as well, and it is an incredibly good document. I do want to applaud the NWT Disabilities Council for their initiative and incredibly hard work.
As I’ve indicated, we’ve taken action on a number of items that were in the initial action plan that was provided and they’ve been included in a different strategies or different action items that we’ve been moving forward, like the early childhood development. We’ve done a significant amount of work around respite. Moving forward, the type of information that was provided to us is going to help us inform these different program areas so that we’re meeting the needs of persons with disabilities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As my colleague had said, this is a multi-disciplinary issue. So, in other words, what that really is, is government jargon that’s spread across multiple departments and it’s difficult to nail one person as responsible.
The initial action plan identified five key areas. I won’t go through them again, but maybe the Minister can talk about how the department has helped facilitate better housing for people with disabilities and found ways to help them work through poverty to ensure we can get them back into the workforce to do better things, because they want to be in a meaningful role in society and we should be facilitating that. So let’s target the area of housing and how we’ve made their lives better.
We are always working with the other departments, sharing technical expertise and information.
With respect to housing, we have occupational therapists who are available to do some assessments for individuals to determine what, if anything, they need in their individual homes, grab bars, ramps, many other things. So we do work with that. The Housing Corp has put in a program – I believe it’s called CARE, but I’m not 100 percent sure and I will confirm that later – where people can actually apply for money to do those ramps. We have occupational therapists and others who can come in and do assessments to determine what is needed in those homes.
Mr. Speaker, the Member may want to ask the Minister responsible for the Housing Corp a couple of these questions, but they are also putting in housing throughout the Northwest Territories and much of it is accessible so that individuals who are living with disabilities can have homes and access to living units. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It was on the tip of my tongue on the last question, but I was trying to find out if the Minister of Health and Social Services was tasked with the lead role on the Disability Steering Committee for these initiatives. So, he is somewhat responsible for all the areas.
My last question is really focused around employment, and some people say the best poverty plan is jobs, an action plan, creating employment for people. I did talk earlier in my statement about stabilizing income and helping people so they can have a meaningful quality role in society that they so truly deserve and desire.
What is the Minister doing and what can the Minister explain to this House that the department has done to help provide opportunities for employment initiatives to help people with disabilities live meaningful lives while they can contribute and make an income? Thank you.
The Department of Education, Culture and Employment has taken the lead on the Labour Market Agreement for Persons with Disabilities. The labour agreement was signed with the Government of Canada in February 2014 to provide funding to better support education and training and to put more employment participation for persons with disabilities. This agreement is one of a series of labour market agreements successfully negotiated between the GNWT, particularly the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, and the Government of Canada with some targeted initiatives for some older workers and others. So, the Department of Education has taken a lead on this and has negotiated the agreement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
