Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm committed to moving this initiative forward. The community of Fort Simpson does need an upgrade to their health centre. We need to bring it to current standards. We are moving the planning process forward. I'm happy to move this into the capital planning process at the earliest opportunity, but it does have to compete with a number of projects across the Northwest Territories, whether it's schools, health centres in different locations, other infrastructure that are being demanded by residents of the Northwest Territories. We're doing the work. We're doing the planning. We hope to get it in as quickly as possible. We also have the Tulita Health Centre; we have the Jean Marie Health Cabin; we have the Sambaa K'e Health Cabin and a number of other projects that we're currently looking at, on top of building the Stanton facility, which is badly needed by the people of the Northwest Territories, as well as the Fort Resolution Health Centre. There's a lot of work being done, Mr. Speaker.
Item 7, oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This morning I spoke about an incident that occurred at the Woodland Manor in Hay River, and I have some questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services about that incident and, I guess, about violence at longterm care facilities in general. Has this incident spurred the department to look into how they can take safeguards to avoid these types of incidents in the future? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member is aware, as I know the Assembly is, that I can't talk about specific individual cases, so I'll talk in more general terms about the types of things we do when there is an incident. When an incident does occur within a longterm care facility, regardless of where it happens to be in the Northwest Territories, immediate measures are taken to ensure that residents are safe and staff are safe. That's our first priority. The next process is to actually do an investigation.
We do an investigation of all situations in longterm care facilities where a safety has been put in jeopardy. This is intended to help us learn from these incidents so that we can put in measures or safeguards to make sure that these types of things don't happen again. Our goal is to prevent future incidents.
As a note, our new longterm care facilities are designed with cameras in the hallways and other safety measures, such as doors that can be locked down to lock off or isolate areas to keep individuals who might have a difference of opinion or some aggression towards each other separated. So there are things that exist in some of our more current facilities. But we try to learn from these incidents. We do investigations so that we can make appropriate changes to ensure that these types of things don't happen again across the Northwest Territories.
I understand that in the new facilities there are going to be some physical barriers, some cameras, measures like that. Are there options currently available to remove someone who might be violent from the facility they're in? Is there a secure location that they can be placed in? I know that residents aren't prisoners, but we do have to think about the safety of the other residents. So are there options to remove violent individuals and somewhere to put them?
Mr. Speaker, as somebody is admitted into a longterm care facility, there is a comprehensive functional assessment done of the individual to determine what their needs are. This information assessment is used to actually develop individual care plans which address the individual's mental health issues and other challenges. These are the things that we do to build individual case plans that will hopefully help us avoid violent incidents within our system. But it has happened. The Member is aware of, certainly, the incident that has recently happened, and we know from review across Canada and by listening to what's happening in other jurisdictions, violence is happening. So we certainly have to address that.
However, moving an individual can prove complicated. If there is a resident showing some violent tendencies or aggression, we have the ability to take them out of the facility and send them to a hospital where we can actually obtain a medical or a psychiatric assessment to determine if there are some underlying issues with the client that are leading to these aggressive or violent behaviours. Since residents are placed in a longterm care facility and have an individual care plan, those care plans can be amended and other resources can be brought to bear to help avoid future incidents.
There has been suggestion that we need to look at the ability to move somebody out of longterm care and into home care. Mr. Speaker, this isn't practical. If somebody is in longterm care, an assessment has been done to determine that they are unable to take care of themselves in a community setting where home care already exists; they need the additional supports of a longterm care facility.
We will work with them. It might require moving to a different facility. It might require other opportunities. In really complex cases, Mr. Speaker, we may have to look at southern placement, where higher levels of support can be provided that we are currently unable to provide here, in the Northwest Territories. As I said previously, when incidents occur, every incident is investigated thoroughly, and we learn from those incident to make sure that we can put in mechanisms that can help us avoid these types of situations in the future. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the Minister for his thorough answers. He's answered a couple of my questions, so this might be my last one. I know that cameras are going into new facilities. Has the department looked into installing cameras in existing facilities, particularly Woodland Manor, and does the department have a price on that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Currently, all of our new longterm care facilities are designed with cameras in public spaces, not in individual rooms as that would be seen as a breach of individuals' privacy. There is no current plan to put cameras in existing facilities, but, if the facilities were to approach us and wish to do that, we're certainly supportive of finding a way to make that happen within some of our existing facilities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To follow up on what the Minister said, he said he would find ways to make it happen, I guess, basically, or to work with the authority to get cameras in facilities. Does that mean helping maybe with the payment or something like that, or is this just come out of the authority's budget as it is? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the Member and the House are aware of, obviously, the fiscal challenges that we're facing, so we would have to be looking within. But it doesn't mean, Mr. Speaker, that we're not interested in doing this, but the way our current facilities are designed, some of them are more open concept, it may prove unnecessary to have cameras in some of our facilities. We need to look. We need to talk to the longterm care facilities that exist and get their ideas of where this might be appropriate and where it may be unnecessary. So it's certainly not all longterm care facilities, but we're absolutely open to discussion, and we will certainly have to find some room within to put cameras if that is ultimately the desire of some of these longterm care facilities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Item 7, oral questions, Member for Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have a follow-up to my Member's statement, some questions for the Minister of Transportation. As I mentioned in my Member's statement, Mr. Speaker, many of my constituents and people of the Beaufort Delta rely on the ferry services leading up to the opening of the ice road. Mr. Speaker, my first question to the Minister is what is the government's backup plan to stabilize costs and maintain fuel supply if ferry service is suspended or reduced? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Minister of Transportation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department has been looking at this very operation as a possible budget reduction, just because of the significant cost of it, and part of this conversation has been talking LNG and propane suppliers and the grocery suppliers of the Beaufort Delta region. From the conversations taking place at present, there is a significant chance that the closure of this ferry would not interrupt the services of either the LNG or propane delivery or the food delivery to the Beaufort Delta region. The department has had a number of conversations with these people, and we continue to talk to them, and there seems to be a reason that we can do this without significant challenges to the Beaufort Delta. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, what led up to the ferry operating until the ice bridge was open was in fact, LNG in Inuvik. Mr. Speaker, there is worry that the community would run out of LNG. I haven't seen any infrastructure in the community that proves that they will be ready and have proper storage facilities in place, Mr. Speaker. I'd also like to ask the Minister what is the estimated cost of building a bridge at the Peel River and Mackenzie River crossings and how does that compare to maintaining existing ferry services? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
To address the bridge cost to start with, that would be a significant cost; I couldn't tell the Member exactly what that would be. We would have to take on a planning study and look into what the infrastructure would cost for that, and even if we did do that, that would be a significant amount of money as we know what the previous bridges in the Northwest Territories have cost. We'd have to go back to Infrastructure Canada to assist with that, and under the fiscal pressures that this government is seeing it's probably something that would have to be rolled out in a 20-year study of our needs of infrastructure.
Getting back to the increased storage capacity of the suppliers in the region, one of the things during the conversation that took place with a number of proponents up there was the Ikhil gas well has been used during these times as of recently, and this helps offset the need for LNG and propane at the same time. But that's why we're having this conversation early on, as this is proposed as a budget reduction coming up in the next budget cycle, is that we want the proponents to have the reserve appropriate in LNG as needed with what's needed with the short time that that ferry would be closed.
I guess the one other point that I'd want to make about it that during the operation of the winter ferry; that the Dempster has been closed 40 per cent of the time so it only leaves about 20 some days at the max that that operation has been open.
Mr. Speaker, I'm sure the department has kept track of all the closures on the highway, but you know I live right on the crossing at the Mackenzie River and the amount of vehicles that I see on a daily basis, Mr. Speaker, just doesn't line up. You know, we have truckers constantly on that highway and people coming from Fort McPherson to Inuvik travelling to Whitehorse, Mr. Speaker.
My next question I'd like to ask the Minister is: will the Minister ensure my constituents in the Beaufort Delta communities that ferry service will continue until the ice road is in operation?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The one thing I can convey to the Member is that even though we are looking at doing this as a budget reduction for the next fiscal year, this year coming up that we will continue to have the winter ferry operation for this fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that wasn't so hard there, Minister. On behalf of my constituents I'd like to thank the department for following through on keeping the operations ongoing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, following on from my Member's statement, I'd like to talk a little bit more about housing availability, public housing availability, with some questions for the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation. The length of the waiting list for public housing, both within Yellowknife and across the territory as a whole, has been constant for years, and I'm wondering if the Minister could tell us what she can do to make more public housing units available, especially to the single parents on the waiting list? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of NWT Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to try to address that as concisely as I can although it's quite a loaded question. There is a huge waiting list for people for housing within the Northwest Territories, it's like 600 families at a minimum at this point, so it is a substantial number of people and it is a high priority for the Government of the Northwest Territories.
What we're doing about it is federally we're meeting with the federal minister. There is actually going to be an FPT meeting at the end of this month. We have been advocating strongly. All three territories have advocated strongly. We've convinced them that when they do their national housing strategy that there has to be a northern component. So our advocacy, our lobbying for the federal government is working in that they are considering that the North is special and they will be actually having a northern component to that strategy. So that's important.
The other thing that we're doing is we have the survey that's going out here at the end of this month. When I've travelled to the communities, as our Premier has talked about with his talking about transparency and being available to residents, the biggest thing I've heard from community members is that the GNWT needs to listen to them. They need to listen to the communities. They all are different, they all have their own opinions, and I have committed to doing that.
There's quite a few policies and programs that I personally would like to take on and change immediately within the Housing Corporation, but I have made a commitment to the public of the Northwest Territories in saying that I will listen to them and I will take their words. So even though it's really difficult, because I do want change myself, I am honouring my commitment and waiting until the survey results come in. At that point, we will be looking at every single policy, every single program, to see if we can structure them better to accommodate people.
In the community specifically of Yellowknife, though, I do want to say that there is market housing available. So sometimes people often think that public housing is the only answer, but it's not. People within Yellowknife market communities actually have more of a luxury than people in the communities in that they can go rent a place; they can qualify for income support if they can't afford it, and also the NWT Housing Corporation has a Transitional Rent Supplement Program that will help people for two years if they need additional support to pay their rent. So there is actually more options within Yellowknife than there is in the smaller communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the Minister for her answer and for her efforts to address this issue. I appreciate that it is an enormous one. Affordability is a key problem in Yellowknife. I appreciate that the government will provide help to people on income assistance and through the Transitional Rent Supplement Program, but still affordability for low- income people is an issue. I want to just ask about the CMHC, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, funding. I know that organization funds operations and maintenance of public housing stock and that number has been in decline since 2003. Is the fact that this operations and maintenance money is going down one of the reasons the government can't build more units?
For quite a few Legislative Assemblies actually there has been a stall on building new units, public housing units. I have not personally spoken to those Ministers so I cannot actually say what their reasoning was for that. My intuition, my gut is telling me, though, that they did put a hold on it because of the declining funding in the operating and maintenance for the CMHC which will dissolve in 2038. So as part of that, I am looking at strategies to address that so that we can actually increase our public housing stock. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the Minister looking at how to bridge that gap in declining O and M funding with the CMHC; it's obviously a critical piece of work. My last question, or potentially my last question, concerns the local housing authorities. Many of them have significant operational surpluses in excess of $500,000, including the Yellowknife Housing Authority. Could the Yellowknife Housing Authority rent additional units using their surplus to provide at least short-term relief for families on the waiting list? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this point I would say that that would not be a very good recommendation; my concern would be is that we set people up. If we were to put them in temporary residences and rent places, people then get accustomed. This is their home, they get very comfortable, and then when their surplus for the local housing organization runs out, then they're kicked out in the street. So I don't think that is a very viable solution.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I realize that this would not be sustainable, but it might supply a short-term additional boost in housing. I mean, people do move out of public housing. So those in temporary units could be moved on to more permanent units. It just seems to me that using those surpluses to create housing would be the best use of that money. So can the Minister commit to looking again at using the surplus for creating additional short-term housing? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The direction that we have given the local housing organizations is that they are to come to us with their suggestions on how they are going to deal with the surpluses. So, again, out of respect for the process that we've already put it on the table and asked them to present to us, then I think at this point it would be inappropriate for me to go back on them and demand what we want to see. So I would be more than eager to see what they are going to present to us. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to talk about the long-term care in Hay River. I would like to ask the Minister if there are protocols in place when there is an incident, a protocol in place that staff have to follow?
Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated previously, when an incident does occur within any of our long-term care facilities, the immediate measures are taken to ensure the residents and staff are safe, such as separating the residents and removing other residents and staff from the area where the incident might be taking place, and doing what we can with the residents themselves to make sure that the altercation is ended as quickly as possible.
I would like to ask the Minister if staff are trained to deal with reports. When there is an incident in a long-term care facility, what type of training do staff have in order to deal with it to ensure that they are dealing with the incident appropriately?
The training varies across the Northwest Territories depending on the type of training or support that individual authorities pre-transformation had established. We are looking to try to obviously standardize some training to make sure that all long-term care facilities have training that is both adequate, timely, and effective. As an example, there is a three-day training that has been available in Fort Smith called P.I.E.C.E.S. P.I.E.C.E.S is an approach to a multidisciplinary team to understand enhanced care for individuals with physical and/or cognitive mental health issues that have behaviour changes, and how they can work together with the clients, with the facility, work together with their team members to ensure that, as they change, as they age, that the staff are on top of it and aware of incidents that may come up. So there is training that we're trying to standardize, trying to make sure that all of our staff have consistent training across the system.
In the long-term care here in Yellowknife, there are two separate areas for individuals that have dementia and others that do not. I would like to ask the Minister if there is such a separation in Woodland Manor, where people with dementia are separated from people that do not have dementia?
We only have only one dementia facility in the Northwest Territories, and that is the facility in Yellowknife. Individuals with dementia have a higher need and a higher requirement for support than individuals in long-term care who may have early-onset Alzheimer's or some level of minor dementia but not extreme dementia. Individuals with dementia, we try to get into the long-term or the dementia facility here in Yellowknife, but as the Member knows, as all Members know, we have a shortage of beds in the Northwest Territories. We are trying to come up with a plan to increase the number of beds across the Northwest Territories for long-term care, including addressing some of the shortages we're going to experience in dementia care or beds moving forward.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister if there is a way that individuals with dementia are separated from people without dementia? In incidents such as this, individuals with dementia are mixed in with individuals that do not have dementia. I would like to ask the Minister, if physically they cannot be separated, then is there some sort of plan or protocol, or whatever we wish to call it, in place that keeps people with dementia away from individuals that do not have dementia?
Individuals within our long-term care facilities have a wide range of different challenges. As I indicated previously, we do an assessment of each individual to identify their needs and their specific needs and develop personal care plans based on the individual's needs. Having said that, in our new facilities we have a lot more structures built into the buildings themselves so that we can isolate different areas and keep individuals, whether they have dementia or not, separated from each other when there are issues, when there is a risk of violence.
So our new facilities do have the ability to do exactly what the Member is discussing. As a note, we are currently moving forward with the construction of an expansion to Woodland Manor which will be a current and modern facility, with all the structures in place that exist within all of our current modern long-term care facilities. So that new expansion will have the ability to do exactly what the Member is discussing, as does our new facility in Behchoko, as does our new facility in Norman Wells, and more modern facilities such as the dementia centres that have been built over the years. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister of Health and Social Services indicate if this government is prepared to implement harm reduction programs such as managed alcohol programs? Has this issue been studied and would the department be prepared to implement them?
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Health and Social Services is developing a strategic framework for mental health and addictions recovery in the Northwest Territories, which is going to include, or rather will be built from that framework, an addictions recovery action plan. As part of that plan, we are focusing on a recovery-oriented system, which does include harm reduction.
So we are looking at what's being done in other jurisdictions by way of harm reduction, on how we might be able to implement some of those harm reduction initiatives here in the Northwest Territories. Recognizing that not all communities are the same, not all regions are the same, we may have to have a variety of programs, depending on what people are telling us they want and need to help them recover.
Thank you to the Minister for that response. So would the department then be in a position to look at the situation in Yellowknife, with the recent media reports supporting this kind of approach, and be willing to discuss developing a pilot with local government officials to start taking some action on this cost-effective action?
