What of the access program students who were planning on taking this program? Will they still be able to fulfill those goals? We will start with that.
We have two students in the access program for TEP and five who were going into the social work program. The staff at Aurora College has been working with these students to help them look for programs in other institutions, so they have all had a plan in place for their career goals as well as their academic path moving forward.
I spoke to some of these students, potentially before that happened, and they were quite upset about not being able to do this education here in the North, or at least start this education here in the North. Is there any possibility that exceptions can be made for these students to continue on the educational path that they had originally planned to do before this announcement was made?
As we have had this dialogue, Members said that nothing should be done until the strategic view has been in place as well as looking at a foundational review, so we have put everything on hold. We are not going to continue with the intakes. With the decisions that were made, we believe that it was appropriate, working with Aurora College with the reductions in the TEP program and social work program, so we are going to wait until the review is complete before we continue to make any further decisions.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that the Minister thought that this was a good idea, but, clearly, there has been a reversal decision there, which I appreciate. Perhaps the Minister can just remind this House and the public: when will the strategic plan be available for review, and can we get a concrete timeline, please, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Moving forward with Aurora College, we did send a letter off to standing committee, and we will be giving standing committee more of an update early next week.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Following up with my other colleagues here on Housing, my question to the Minister of Housing is on programs or additional programs. Cataloguing the survey is under way, and I suspect it will be followed by a review. On the idea of preservation of capital, is the Minister's office willing to entertain or have a loan guarantee program to high-credit applicants so that they can be eligible to own their own home, considering the life of the CMHC program is one-mortgage term? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is a bit early to define what exactly the program renewal will look like, because the survey just closed over a week ago. I do know, however, that we have done mortgage programs in the past and there were some issues with them, so I would have to review what the problems were with the mortgage programs that we provided, to do an analysis. I know that we also will be working towards more of a lease-to-own kind of a model, as well. So, in regard to whether we start to do a guaranteed loan, that would be something I would have to explore to find out why it didn't work in the past. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I am glad to hear that the Minister is open to suggestions on how to better package and tailor programs offered to the communities. In this case, on the issue of capital preservation, I think it will be an entertaining suggestion to look at loan guarantees to be ironed out in the new strategy.
That was more of a comment, but I will allow the Minister, if she wishes, to respond.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Northwest Territories Housing Corporation is looking forward to all of the ideas. We will be reviewing all suggestions that are provided with the survey, in the House, and any other way that we have gotten input, so everything will be reviewed.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today the Finance Minister provided some information to the public and to us in the House about increases to the budget. In one of the lines, it says that we will increase the budget for homecare for $2.5 million. Through the whole process, we started at $1.5 million, so can the Minister of Health and Social Services please advise this House what this extra $1 million amount is going to be allocated for in homecare? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as the budget stands today, there is $7.954 million in the budget for homecare as part of our core services. This $2.5 million is going to increase that $7.954 million to $10.454 million. Mr. Speaker, there is also $5.358 million that comes from the federal government to provide home and community supports to Indigenous people throughout the Northwest Territories. It's our understanding that the federal government is considering modifying their formula on how those dollars are distributed throughout the Northwest Territories, not decreasing the amount but modifying their formula, which could result in some of our regions receiving less money for homecare than they currently do as the federal money changes.
We want to make sure that we are working with our communities so that we do not go backwards in services, so some of those dollars are intended to help us make sure that some of our regions do not have reduced homecare services as a result of the potential change in the federal formula. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the Minister for his answer. That was good to hear. With this new money, will this money be put out April 1st, and are we ready to go?
During our decisions with Committee of the Whole, I was very clear that we have a significant amount of work to still do. In fact, we talked about the continuing care plan, which is basically going to include our homecare services. I committed to moving that work along as quickly as I could, and, should we reach a point where we are actually ahead of schedule, I indicated that I would be happy to move forward for a supplementary to start rolling out some of these changes. This addition means, basically, I wouldn't have to come forward for a supplementary.
I do believe there are things we can do right away. One of the things we are doing right away is looking at what baseline home support services are needed by every community in the Northwest Territories. Once that work is done, we can start moving forward. So, there is still some planning to do, but I am confident we will be able to use this money to benefit residents of the Northwest Territories.
I appreciate the Minister's answer and look forward to hopefully implementing this. However, as we are talking about the plans, it can be a long process. What will happen if this government does not utilize all of this money? Where does this money go?
As with all program lines, if the dollars are not fully expended, they go back to general revenues.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Health Minister just talked about what they had to do to roll out the homecare money. It doesn't seem that complicated if you look at the number of homecare workers in the different regions. Can't you throw a couple of hundred thousand or a few hundred thousand to Hay River, and they can hire a couple of homecare workers and continue doing what they are doing? It doesn't seem like there needs to be a plan necessarily. As for a study, they know how many homecare workers are in the region. We can see which regions are understaffed. Is that a possibility? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you Mr. Speaker. I wish it was that simple. The bottom line is there is no consistent application of home support workers across the Northwest Territories. We know what numbers exist today, but there has been no standard set as to what every community should have. That is the work we are doing today. Once we know what a standard is, or a baseline is, then we can fix that by putting physicians in.
As I said in Committee of the Whole, it is not just home support care workers, Mr. Chair. We are looking at a different array of programs, family supports, that could be money that we could float to families to help them support. There are community supports we could put in, which require a new design of position, designing a new position, writing job descriptions, getting those evaluated, and putting them in place.
I am confident that we can move forward and start closing these gaps with these dollars, but it is not something we can do tomorrow. When the continuing care plan is done, I will meet with committee and we can work together to set our priorities for the remainder of this fiscal year and moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I have a general idea of how many homecare workers are in each region. What is the issue with seeing that this region has significantly less per capita than other regions and putting the money in that region and putting out two jobs, let's say, with the job descriptions that have already been created, and hiring two homecare workers? What is wrong with that plan? Is it too simple? Is it not related to an action plan or a framework? What is the problem here?
As we look forward and we determine what the baseline is, what if Hay River is the baseline? What if that is the appropriate number of physicians? We don't have that answer. Until we have that answer, we don't know that putting physicians in one community over another is actually going to help us meet our needs.
Also, Mr. Speaker, the current plan is about home support workers. That is the way we have provided those services. Maybe it is not. Maybe we should have more homecare nurses. Maybe we should have community support workers. Maybe we should have family support workers. These are questions we don't have answered. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, we have talked about this, it is like banging your head on a wall. It hurts after a while. It is time to do things right. It is time to do things better. That is what we are prepared to do.
If Hay River is the baseline, I think you are going to have to fire a bunch of home support workers in the other regions. I am pretty sure that we are understaffed. I will just leave it at this. I know the answer that I am going to get. Will the Minister commit to adding a couple of more home support workers in Hay River with this money?
Moving forward, I commit to providing and ensuring that all communities in the Northwest Territories have adequate homecare supports based on a formula, based on numbers that actually make sense.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question, maybe only one question, for the Minister of Health and Social Services in line with what we are talking about in homecare. I would like to ask the Minister if the Minister knows how many people receive a seniors' fuel subsidy across the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have that number in front of me. Thank you.
The Minister talks about baseline data. I think that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment has done a lot of baseline data in order to determine who is eligible for senior's fuel. Those are homeowners who are seniors who are under a certain income. I think that would be a quick way to determine the baseline. I would like to ask the Minister if the Minister is prepared to work with the Minister of Education to get that information as a start to developing a baseline of the communities?
Absolutely. We are working closely with our partner departments, both housing and education. There is a lot of data out there. It is a matter of compiling it and putting it together in a useful format so that when we come to committee and say, "this is the baseline," we can defend it and understand it. If it needs to be changed, we are happy to do so. We do need to do the work so that we can make informed, evidence-based decisions in this Assembly.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister of Education some questions about the reinstatement of funding for the Teacher Education Program and social work program through Aurora College. I am just trying to figure out how this is actually going to work. Are these complete and total reinstatements of the funding for those programs? I will start with that one, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the funding was always going to be there as we were looking at phasing out the programs over the next two fiscal years, and three fiscal years for the TEP program. That is going to obviously be put on hold until we sit down with committee as well as sit down with our stakeholders at Aurora College to look, as we move forward, at refocusing Aurora College and making sure that they are effective and efficient and meeting the labour market demands as well as the students' needs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you to the Minister for that response. We won't actually see a change in the line items in the main estimates in terms of the contribution to be made to Aurora College. Is that what I am hearing?
It will be looked at during the supplementaries that we are going to be bringing in later. That is how it is going to be effected.
Thanks to the Minister for that. Come September, when students come back for their program, there will be a whole cohort missing of new students in these two programs. All the teachers will be there ready to go, but they won't have any students. Is that what I am hearing? Why would we reinstate all the funding for the program if we are not taking in new students? Can the Minister explain this?
As I have mentioned before, the staff complement is going to be still in place to support the students that are currently in the program. We want to continue to support these students so that they can complete their studies and we can get them graduated as well as become part of teaching in small communities as well as getting our social workers out and working for government as well. We are going to continue to support the students that are currently in the program right now.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
