Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we do have an Official Languages Act here in the Northwest Territories that recognizes 11 official languages, and we attempt to provide services as much as we can in those official languages. If you go to Stanton, by way of example, if you move around that facility you’ll notice that there’s signage for all the official languages in that facility. We try to ensure that official languages are posted in facilities across the Northwest Territories, health facilities. We attempt to have interpreters available to provide language services to individuals who request them. It can be challenging at times, but we do our best to provide those services in the official languages.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Mr. Chair, just for some clarification. You know, I want to be respectful here, with all due respect to court cases and positions that governments are put in relevant to judgments and decisions. We’re identifying here nearly a million dollars a year required to, you know, deliver French language communication. I respect that we have an act that recognizes all 11 official languages, including French. I’m wondering, you know, this is a fairly large chunk of money and I don’t want to deny that it’s being put to good use. I’m just troubled to understand why we have nearly a million dollars in this regard here, and seemingly we don’t have a line item relevant to the Aboriginal language communications and services. Maybe some explanation might be warranted there, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The dollars that are coming in are as a result of the court case. It may be better to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment some of those questions. As a result they are responsible for the actual… They lead the rollout of the response to the court case. Just for the record, the court case was based on a constitutional challenge against the Government of the Northwest Territories which we lost, and we had a constitutional obligation to meet the remedy that was outlined by the courts. This is Health and Social Services’ part. There is actually much larger budget related to that court case that is spread across all the departments of the Government of the Northwest Territories. We provide our Aboriginal language services from within the existing budgets that you see in front of you and flow those dollars to the authorities who provide appropriate signage, arrange translators for the different Aboriginal languages. We also provide bilingual bonuses to our staff. There’s many mechanisms by which we try to provide or ensure we’re providing appropriate language services across the Northwest Territories for the different language groups.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Vanthuyne.,
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank the Minister for the explanation. Under health and social services authority funding, the explanation identifies funding to health and social service authorities for the provision of administration and support services. It’s the largest contribution for $41,426,000. It’s increased by a few million since the actuals in 2014. Do we expect that this amount might go down as we see the new system transformation? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. . These dollars cover things like basic administration, client support services, some of the direct costs by way of individual authorities, some facility maintenance and support across the different authorities, their finance costs, human resource costs and some of their system support costs. These are things that are happening in the authorities today. I don’t anticipate that these dollars are going to go down with a single authority because, as I’ve said several times, this isn’t centralization or taking anything away from the communities or regions that exist today. They are still going to require CEOs, they’re still going to be providing services in their health centres, and they’re still going to require human resources or still going to require staff. . We don’t anticipate a drop in this area as we roll out the one authority.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I understood when we got briefings given to us in the early days of this Assembly that there in fact was going to be some economy of scale identified in the transformation, in the system transformation, and that we were going to be able to help the authorities with matters relevant to, you know, hiring and procurement, things of that nature. In the last couple of years, we’ve seen increases as it relates to this line item. I would have thought that maybe there would have been some efficiencies identified and that there could be a possible future reduction with the new system transformation. I don’t know if the department cares to comment on that, but I thought that that was the expectation. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, in the previous government, as with this government, I’ve been very careful to say that the health transformation is not about reducing costs of the healthcare system. But, absolutely, we anticipate we’re going to find some efficiencies, whether it’s through purchasing, purchasing together, we’re going to be able to share some finance services, you know, crosstraining. We absolutely anticipate efficiencies, but we don’t anticipate dropping the budget as a result. One of our priorities is actually to do some deficit recovery. Currently, the eight authorities combined have almost $50 million in deficit, so we have to build in our deficit and recovery into our plan. We’re hoping to use some of the efficiencies that we attain to help offset some of our costs which means, ultimately, once we’ve reduced our deficit, we should be able to have some additional dollars to invest in healthcare. But I don’t anticipate dropping the budgets in these areas immediately or at all.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll move past that item and move to Tlicho cultural coordinator. I’m happy to see in the description that Canada and the Tlicho are onethird partners with the territorial government in funding this position. All I really am asking here is: why is there just this one particular position identified in this particular part of the budget? Are there similar positions funded in other regions throughout the territory? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this is a direct result of the Tlicho Agreement, their land claims agreement, land claims and self-government agreement. It’s articulated in the legislation. This is us meeting our obligation under that legislation. They’re the only group in the Northwest Territories that has finalized selfgovernment negotiations. This could be something that exists in the future, if negotiated, with different Aboriginal governments.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Vanthuyne.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank the Minister for the explanation. That seems to me that that would have been easy enough to have identified originally in the explanation that’s in here regarding the position. That’s all my questions for page 177, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Vanthuyne. Moving on. Recognizing Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is in relation to that same page, but it affects just the recent recognition of the need for Dene fonts in terms of parents registering their children with their traditional First Nation names. I wanted to understand: what is the cost in terms of implementing the formal recognition of Dene fonts and its use in the vital statistics. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we’re looking at coming forward with some amendments of the Vital Statistics Act that will allow us to include Aboriginal names and appropriate fonts within birth certificates and other documents within the Northwest Territories. We’ve done some early assessment, but we don’t have a full costing of that change at this point. When we have better information on the costing, we will certainly share that with committee and the Member.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. If the Minister could also maybe indicate, state in terms of the timeliness, in terms of the full implementation of recognizing the Dene fonts and its use in the vital stats. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, as I’ve indicated, I’m hoping to bring forward legislation for first and second reading during this sitting, at which point it will be in committee’s hands for 120 days, which means the earliest it will be able to be in front of the legislature for third reading would be the fall sitting. If passed, and I stress if passed, then we will have to identify an appropriate implementation date that gives us time to actually change our system so that we can utilize the different fonts that exist within our Official Languages Act, the 11 official languages, so that we can produce our documents using those official languages. I don't have a set timeline. Some things are still up in the air as far as, you know, if the legislation passes, if I’m able to get it in front of the House. I anticipate I will, but, given that there are some uncertainties, I’m unprepared to commit to an actual date at this point.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Nadli.
Perhaps this is my last question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was just seeking to understand whether… You know, we purport in one instance to recognize 11 official languages, including Aboriginal languages. Now we finally recognize the Dene font. Am I missing something here? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Mr. Minister.
Thank you. Mr. Chair, with respect to some of our legal documents, such as our birth certificate, although we had an obligation under the Official Languages Act, our documents only recognize the Roman alphabet in the production of those documents. There was an official languages review done by the official languages commissioner that indicated that it would be appropriate, given that we have an Official Languages Act here, in the Northwest Territories, that our legal documents could include all of the official languages and utilize the appropriate fonts. I have asked the department to move forward with the changes to the Vital Statistics Act that will allow us to use Dene fonts in our Aboriginal languages on some of our defining documents. I intend to bring that legislation forward during this sitting, at which point it will be in committee’s hands. Once it passes, hopefully in the fall, we will be in a position to begin operationalizing that.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. No further questions on page 177. Moving on to page 178, Health and Social Services, administrative and support services, active positions, information item. Any questions for page 178? Seeing none, page 176, Health and Social Services, administrative and support services, operations expenditure summary, total activity $77,812,000. Agreed?
Agreed
Moving on to page 180, Health and Social Services, operations expenditure summary. This will be deferred. Moving on to detail, page 181, Health and Social Services, ambulatory care services, grants, contributions and transfers, information item. Any questions? Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to understand again. Maybe we could get an explanation from the Minister: why was ambulatory care services established as a separate key activity? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, these changes came into place during the last main estimates process. What we were trying to do is to align how we report all of our finances within our authorities to be consistent with CIHI reporting. Ambulatory care is one of the areas that we were required to report on, but we didn’t always align those financially. They were all spread out in different areas. Last main estimates, we’ve brought everything in line; all the authorities report on the same criteria, and the department now reports to the same criteria to be compliant with CIHI and a few of the… Oh sorry, the Canadian Institution of Health Information. We’re now consistent with how they report and how we are required to provide them with data.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Nadli.
Yes, thank you. Again, Mr. Chair, I’m just trying to… Maybe… I don’t know if the Minister or his officials would have access to just a total figure amount for in one year how much money is expended in terms of medevacs out of small communities into Yellowknife. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we do have the dollar figures that were expended in previous years for medical travel and medevacs. I’m sure I can get the department to break it down on what the cost per region was for medevacs. Would that suffice?
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Nadli.
Yes, thank you.
We’ll do that.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Further questions. Mr. Thompson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I notice it’s an increase of $1.3 million compared for the main estimates from last year. Is there a rationale for the huge increase on this? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Mr. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, it’s a bit more than that. We have $1 million forced growth for outofterritory hospitals; we have got a $47,000 forced growth on supplies, and we have a $1.23 million in forced growth for the dialysis requirements in Stanton.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Thompson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The numbers that the Minister talked about just seem to be a little high compared to the numbers I see on this page, which are $24,403,000 and the Main Estimates were $23,083,000. The Minister just quoted a couple, about $4 million increases. Or 2.3, sorry. What I’m trying to figure out is where the discrepancy is. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
