I know there was a lot of miscommunication within a certain area within the Beaufort-Delta region there, and moving forward, as we go through the shared services and innovation planned strategies, that when we have the Department of Health and Social Services and possibly the Department of Human Resources that are giving this information out, that it’s on the same level of input and the same level of message being sent, because it has caused some stress and caused some insecurities within our employees of the GNWT. Thank you, Madam Chair.
With changes there are often glitches, if you will, and we are aware of the concerns the Member is bringing up. We remain committed to our original commitment, which is no loss of the number of jobs in the regions and communities. There would obviously be some changes in reporting relationships and maybe some functions within individual jobs. Recognizing this, the CEOs are meeting next week to talk about their change management process on this to bring back some clarity to something that should have been fairly simple.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Next I have Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. As we all are aware, the directorate is really the strategic think-tank and the overall coordinator of pretty much the Department of Health, and so with that I expect a certain level of, I guess, leadership. We know that the management of drinking water is a shared responsibility with a number of other departments here in the Northwest Territories. However, because we share this responsibility, no lead department takes that active role as being the leader, and that’s the concern that I think a lot of Members have and have expressed many, many times. Unfortunately, with all the emphasis, especially as of late with the Obed spill and potential tainted water in our waterways as we know today, you would think that the testing of water would be a high priority because this is what we’ve been hearing time and time again.
Now, if one goes on the MACA website, which really is the only website that we have at our disposal publicly to show what our water quality is like – are we doing the proper chemical testing and the bacteriological testing – if one goes on this website you would think that there would be testing which is, under our guidelines – there are national guides on testing – once a month in all our communities across the Northwest Territories on both chemical and bacteriological testing. This is not happening. This is not, indeed, the case. In fact, in lots of communities, based on the data that we have on the database on-line, which is our only public document of the availability of this information, some of this information is from 2011, some of it is from 2012, and we have some from 2013. In some cases we have one test in that year, and clearly we have to do monthly testing. That is our obligation.
Can the Minister tell the House, tell the people of the Northwest Territories if water testing is so important why are we not putting it publicly on record?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Water quality tests are required under the Water Supply System Regulations and the chief public health officer requires that the following water quality testing for treated water, so we do test drinking water on a regular basis. As far as public waters, we work with I believe it’s MACA who has the lead on sampling rivers and lakes. ENR. Sorry, ENR has the lead on that.
Again, this department shares a responsibility with other departments in this government to make sure that that information is readily available. On top of that, if you look in that same database, again, Department of Health has a shared responsibility. The last annual report on drinking water was tabled in 2011. In 2011. That’s quite a long time ago. Again, what is this department going to do to make sure that that information is readily public? ‘
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Ms. DeLancey.
Thank you, Madam Chair. There is an interdepartmental drinking water quality committee that is responsible for coordinating and producing these reports and I recognize that there is expectation that the 2012 report will be done shortly and be publicly available. I don’t have the timelines here today.
I appreciate the deputy minister’s response to that. I’m looking forward to that report. Under the same title, strategic leadership, and basically as a coordinator, I will take the liberty, an opportunity to talk a little bit more about the Anti-Poverty Initiative, which really falls under, because this is a social envelope committee lead here, can the Minister indicate what new monies, total new monies, are being involved with this new initiative? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. We’re just pulling out the exact details. We have it. It’s on one of my sheets here, I know that. But to start off, we have the $650,000 that was identified on the previous page, 8-14, that I already answered Mr. Bromley on. We’ve got some money in for a senior advisor position, which is $163,000. We’ve got money in for the anti-poverty roundtable meetings, research and communications. This is the development and working towards the development of the territorial action plan, $60,000. I actually have a sheet that has all this on it, I just don’t know where it is. Can we just get a second, Madam Chair?
Thank you, Mr. Minister. We’ll just take moment to find that information. While we’re waiting I wanted to congratulate the men’s Olympic hockey team on their win.
---Applause
We got a chance to watch it together in the Member’s lounge and there was a lot of adrenaline there and that wasn’t so long ago and, of course, we were all looking for a break anyway. So let’s carry that forward into our meeting today. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I didn’t have that memorized off the top of my head, but I conveniently had that information available, but I’ve got eight binders here so it was a little hard to find it.
The Health and Social Services department has $1.073 million dedicated to anti-poverty funding. In total the government has $2.6 million going towards anti-poverty. Within the Department of Health and Social Services, we have $200,000 under the Healthy Food for children and youth. We’re providing food vouchers for families in need through the Healthy Family and Collective Kitchens Program. So that’s $200,000. The remaining $800,000 in this area is coming through Education, Culture and Employment. We’ve got $500,000 as I’ve previously indicated for NGO and Aboriginal government initiatives that is falling under the Department of Health and Social Services. We have the $60,000 that I’ve already mentioned for the annual multi-stakeholder meetings and the work towards the development of a territorial action plan. We have $163,000 that’s in the Department of Health and Social Services for the anti-poverty coordinator, who is supporting the group and doing research in administration. We’ve got $75,000 going to the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority to fund for the day programs, and in this case for 2013-14 they’re using it for a wet shelter, and we’ve got $75,000 for the Day Shelter in Yellowknife. So in the Department of Health and Social Services, $1.073 million.
Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m just doing some quick math here. So in essence I think the Minister said overall new money initiative, if my math is correct, is two million six-some thousand dollars. With this new money, is this something that we’ll look forward to seeing on an annual basis as we build future budgets? I mean, are we seeing this grow, is there a force of growth factor in that number or is that just a starting figure for the 2014-2015 budget? Thank you.
Thank you. The $1.073 million in Health and Social Services and the $1.53 million in the other departments totaling $2.603 million are additions to the base.
Thank you. I appreciate the Minister giving me that number. With the overall and daunting task of the Anti-Poverty Action Plan, what percent of this new money of the overall $2.6 million – let’s round it off – are we really putting towards the overall plan and what percentage of funding is left that is still left to be paid within the plan? Thank you.
Thank you. We have put these dollars in based on the actions in the plan. There aren’t any additional dollars at this point for ’14-15 and any dollars that come in the future will certainly be discussed and debated through the business planning process and future budgets.
Maybe I’ll rephrase my question a bit better here. We are definitely putting a dent into poverty with this current budget, I’m not going to deny that. I applaud the government for at least putting that small amount in, I’ll use small, but I think poverty is going to be a lot more than just $2.6 million.
Again, we’re talking about strategy, we’re talking about overall coordination and forward thinking here. What is missing in terms of hitting those highest points possible within the strategy? Are we just tackling 15 percent of the overall plan in this budget? How much more is entitled to the overall success of the plan? Thank you.
Thank you. Currently everything in the GNWT’s response to the framework is funded and identified to be funded within the plan. We hope to, with partners, leverage for more dollars to combat poverty here in the Northwest Territories, but I must remind everybody that this $2.6 million we’re talking about is new investment into the combat against poverty. There are a number of actions within the action plan that already have dollars associated with them and a bunch of the work being done by departments like the Housing Corp are part of the strategy to combat poverty in the Northwest Territories but don’t necessarily have any dollars allocated towards them.
As we move forward and we hear from the stakeholders group on the development of the territorial action plan it will help us to continue to evolve and mold our response, our GNWT response, which may indeed include future activities, but we have to do that all recognizing our fiscal limitations as a territorial government.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Next I have Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a couple of questions here, but I’ll first ask a question following up on Mr. Dolynny’s question about the Anti-Poverty Strategy funding. The action plan for the Anti-Poverty Strategy hasn’t yet been finalized. That’s going to happen sometime in the next number of months and I certainly look forward to that, but somewhere in the back of my mind I thought that I had been advised that once the action plan was done, in addition to the money that’s in this current budget, that there might be a supp coming forward to fund the actions in the action plan. So I’d like to ask the Minister, once the action plan is done and there are actions determined that we need to act on, is it potentially possible for the government to come forward with a supplementary appropriation to fund some of those actions in the Anti-Poverty Action Plan? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Abernethy.
Thanks, Madam Chair. The GNWT’s response to the Anti-Poverty Framework is what is before us today and we have a response based on activities that we can do that fall under our mandate to combat poverty here in the Northwest Territories. So, things related to Health and Social Services, Education, Culture and Employment, Housing and the other departments that are participating. The next step is to develop the territorial action plan where all partners will identify the types of things they’re going to be doing to combat poverty. To support the work that other organizations and governments are doing, we do have the $500,000 available for them to utilize and hopefully to leverage for additional funds from other groups to help combat poverty in the Northwest Territories. In that we are going to see a territorial action plan and our GNWT action plan will certainly form a part of that. If there are requests for additional money or if there are requests for additional action within the territorial action plan, we will certainly bring those through the business planning process to make sure that those that we can support, we do and those that we can’t, we don’t.
Thanks to the Minister. So I heard the Minister say there’s not going to be an ask for more money for anti-poverty in the ‘14-15 year. You can correct me if my understanding is incorrect.
I wanted to ask a question – I think it belongs here – under the directorate. I don’t remember if it was last year or if it was a little further back than that, but my understanding is we now have I’m going to call it – it came from the French secretariat, I believe – a French position within the Department of Health and Social Services. I believe it was a pilot. I would just like to know from the Minister if I’m correct in my remembering and how that pilot is working. Is it beneficial and is it likely to be continued on a permanent basis? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Ms. DeLancey.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The Member is correct; we do have a position that’s been in place for a couple of years funded through the federal languages funding, a manager of French language. It was not a pilot so much as it was a first step towards working with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment and other departments on developing our French language services plan for the GNWT. So that position has been working with ECE, with the Federation Franco-Tenoise and we are now close to finalizing a French language services plan. It’s not a pilot, we will retain that position, but there may be other positions added once the plan is finalized and resourced. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thanks to the deputy minister. The French language services plan that the deputy minister references, is that just for the Department of Health and Social Services or is she referencing a plan across the government?
It is a GNWT-wide plan being developed under the coordination by the Francophone affairs secretariat in the Department of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thanks to the deputy minister. My other question has to do with insured services and things that are not covered under insured services. I mentioned one the other day when I talked about naturopathic doctors, but the other service, I guess, that I think and I believe there was a commitment from the previous Health Minister to consider bringing this in under our insured services, and it’s bariatric surgery. I’d like to know from the Minister, first, has bariatric surgery had any work done on it to bring it in under insured services and where does the department sit and the Minister sit in terms of bringing naturopathic doctors in as an insured service. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. There are a large number of services that have become available over the years that are not currently covered under our insured services. Our insured services coverage is fairly dated and it hasn’t really had a very comprehensive review in some time, which is one of the reasons why we’ve created the chief clinical advisor position to help us actually do this analysis to make sure that the types of things that are covered under insured services are really keeping with the times, and the fact that the health system does change and evolve and new programs and services come in.
We’ve had the chief clinical advisor on for a while. One of his primary tasks is to provide clinic guidance around clinical practice guidelines but also to provide advice and guidance on what we have and currently cover under insured services.
One of the things we are looking at, as well as many others, is bariatric surgery. It’s going to take a bit of time to make sure that we’re doing the comprehensive analysis on that and then we bring those forward for discussion.
At this point in time, there is no discussion about including naturopathic doctors under insured services.
Thanks to the Minister. So, my usual question, I guess, is in terms of timing. When might we expect this revision of the list to be done? I’m hoping that maybe there would be some communication with Regular Members as to what the department has decided on, and as part of that, is there a willingness on the part of the department to look at including naturopathic doctors at some point and when might that be? Thank you.
Madam Chair, the chief clinical advisor is going to be working on this over the next year to look at different procedures that haven’t been covered, including things like bariatric surgery. That will be done over the next year and hopefully we’ll be in a position to have some discussions about what may or may not be added or included in the future.
At this point in time, there is no intention to include naturopathic doctors and the services they provide under insured services. I do have a meeting with the naturopathic doctors here in the near future, where we’ll have an opportunity to hear from them and hear what their interests are as far as providing services. We have indicated that we will make them our fourth priority for regulation for licensing purposes here in the Northwest Territories. So we are moving forward with a number of things with them, but at this point in time there’s no intention to make them an insured service. I’m looking forward to the discussions though.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Activity summary, directorate, operations expenditure summary, $10.016 million. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m sorry, I lied, I do have another question that was hiding under a piece of paper.
In compensation and benefits there’s quite an increase, six and a half thousand dollars, six-hundred-whatever, from $7.8 million to $7.1 million. I have a note here, three PYs and I don’t know quite where I got that from, but can I get an explanation as to why the major increase in compensation and benefits? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. It seems vaguely familiar. I’m pretty sure that’s exactly the same question that Mr. Bromley asked earlier. It’s six positions. If you average them out to about $100,000 per, it’s about $600,000 and we can provide the detail to the Member. We’ll print off Hansard.
Madam Chair, I just wanted to apologize. I must have gapped out when Mr. Bromley asked his question, so I’m very sorry for wasting everybody’s time. I’ll read it when we get it. Thanks.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Page 8-13, activity summary, directorate, operations expenditure summary, $10.016 million. Agreed?
Agreed.
Page 8-14, activity summary, directorate, grants and contributions, $685,000.
Agreed.
Page 8-15, information item, directorate, active positions. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Madam Chair. This is where the Minister’s explanation kind of falls apart, given that there are a total of two new positions for the department plus one indeterminate part-time, which makes, again, the increase in compensation and benefits quite high. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Madam Chair. There are some ins and outs in this particular area. The anti-poverty position is one in; the Health Information Act is two in; there are some financial shared services positions being transferred out, three; there’s the full part-time senior policy advisor position in; and there are two Health Information Act positions in. So there are some ins and outs in this particular area. Thank you, Madam Chair.
That’s obvious, I would say, given that we’re only up two here net, but we’ve heard about six new positions. It suggests that two of those new positions must be paid in the order of $300,000 or something like that. Again, the math is fuzzy. I note that the other divisions do manage their compensation and benefits in just about every case. Just in the directorate we seem to have this issue. Thank you.
There are O and M dollars associated in some of these program areas; salary is a portion. But for some of the specifics to help explain the accounting behind some of this, I’ll go to Ms. Mathison.
