Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister Responsible for the Status of Women. As I mentioned in my statement, the Status of Women Council's strategic plan doesn't anticipate the changes the Minister is now fronting, yet it was created in her term. Why has she now decided to make these changes? Thank you.
Masi. Minister responsible for the Status of Women.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by clarifying. When I was asked questions the other day on the Status of Women, if there was anything in my statement that said that I was going to ask the Status of Women to go against the legislative act, then I sincerely apologize because it is important, as members of the public, that we do not lie in the House. I don't remember making that statement. I will check Hansard. If I did, I will apologize in advance. I hope that other Members will, as well.
I don't plan on changing the mandate of the Status of Women, Mr. Speaker. What I plan to do with the Status of Women is bring them back to making sure that they work within the legislative act, to make sure that they are actually representing the act, which is what they were formed for. Why they are working on the new strategic plan is because, for many years, the Status of Women has said they don't have enough money to get to the communities to get the voices.
I met with them a couple of weeks ago, and we talked about reviewing the budget to see about how they can actually bring the voices of women to the table, because that is really important. That is what they are regional representatives for. It is not that they are changing a way that they are going to do something that is different. I want to bring them back, Mr. Speaker, to the purpose of the Status of Women, which is enacting the Status of Women Council Act. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I have had the opportunity to review both the act and the strategic plan. I am unclear how the board is not currently enacting the act. Could the Minister explain?
There are things they are doing that fall within the act. There are things within the act that say they may do. There are some basic pieces within the act that we need to get back to, like I was saying.
It is right that it doesn't say gender-based analysis, but section 3(1)(e) within the Status of Women Council Act says that the council's purpose is to review policies and legislation affecting women and to report its finding to the relevant government departments or agencies. When I, Mr. Speaker, look at reviewing policies and legislation on things that affect women, again, I may be incorrect, but my interpretation of the act -- and the act is about interpretation -- says that that is gender-based analysis; so I want to bring them back to that.
Another piece of the act, section 3(1)(f), says: "To provide assistance to the Minister in promoting changes to ensure the attainment of equality of women." Section 3(1)(d): "To advise the Minister on issues that the Minister may refer to the council for consideration."
I hate to bring this out in public, but it is in public. When I did meet with them, I talked to them about my need to meet with them. For the last couple of years, I have been asking them to meet with me. They only had two meetings in Yellowknife, and each time they have had the meetings, they have been during session, which has made it really difficult for me to actually meet with them, except to go in and do a welcoming speech at lunch. They haven't been able to meet after session hours.
I did speak with them the other day and said that we need to have a face-to-face meeting, at least four hours. I am not sure how we can work together, the Status of Women Council and the Minister responsible for the Status of Women, if we can't meet in two years.
Mr. Speaker, I apologize for bringing this public, but it is in the public, and so that is what I want to do. I want to sit with them, regain back their original mandate, make sure that they are following the act, and make sure that we support each other as best as possible.
As I said in my statement, the Minister, of course, can ask the council for advice, including gender-based analysis.
Let's take a couple of these changes and break them down. Can the Minister confirm that the Wise Women Awards were not offered this year because the council is no longer eligible for the pot of funding that funded them?
That is totally incorrect. From my understanding, the Status of Women did put out nominations. It closed in February; I am not sure of the exact date. They stated that they couldn't do the awards because of financial limitations. Those are things that we are looking at within their budget. As stated before, they are looking at their budget to see how they can best provide the services that they need to provide for that.
We do have a pot of funding. It is a small pot. It is $50,000 a year. The Status of Women never applied for that this year, Mr. Speaker. It wasn't that they couldn't get the money; you need to apply on the money to obtain the money.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the clarification from the Minister. My last question on this is we have recently had a couple of successful campaign schools. They were organized by the Department of Executive and Indigenous Affairs, and I understood that this was the case because the Status of Women currently is very short-staffed. Can the Minister confirm that the move of the campaign schools to government, in the form of Executive and Indigenous Affairs, is only temporary? Mahsi.
The move to bring it into government at this point actually wasn't because of any animosity or any other reason. The reason was because the previous campaign schools for women that were done focused on just the Legislative Assembly.
It was when we did the first workshop during my term in Hay River that it was quickly realized that, if we focused just on the Legislative Assembly, we were defeating our purpose. There were a lot of women who didn't want to run for it because they had childcare issues; they didn't want to do the amount of travelling; they didn't want to leave their communities; they had obligations; a host of reasons.
We decided to expand our campaign schools. We decided that it was important for women in leadership not only to be here. That would be my ideal, to have equal representation, but leadership isn't only in the Legislative Assembly. We needed to look at municipal governments. We needed to look at Aboriginal governments. We needed to look at even education authorities. All elected positions needed to be considered; so we took it internally, just for the short term, to look at actually how we can meet all of those components.
At this point, we are still evaluating. We have just done our new deliveries with it. We will be evaluating the program, and then we will be deciding where we go forward with that. Mr. Speaker, my job is to support the Status of Women Council; the Status of Women Council's is to support me as Minister of Status of Women. I want to work closely with them. We just need to make sure that the campaign school is meeting the needs of residents, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you heard my Member's statement about non-medical escorts and the important role they cover for our residents. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services: does the Department of Health and Social Services have a policy in place that would compensate non-medical travel escorts for their time away from their place of employment? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, approved non-medical escorts are provided the same medical travel benefits as the patients who they are supporting and escorting. This is coverage for travel, meals, accommodations, and local ground transportation in accordance with the policies. Neither patients nor escorts are compensated for time away from work. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the Minister for his answer. Since the department doesn't have a policy in place, do they have something in place to provide some sort of incidental funding for the person so that they can get shampoo and stuff like that that they forget back at home?
When patients stay in the boarding home, they are provided with meals and there are light foods available throughout the day, things like sandwiches, fruit juices, and cookies, so that if they miss a meal, those are there. If they are in transit for a day, they can claim the $18 a day to offset the cost of incidentals. When patients stay in private or commercial accommodations, they receive meal per diems in accordance with the policies.
I appreciate the Minister for giving us that update and that information. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister please advise this House what happens if a non-medical escort cannot eat the food available at the boarding home? Does the government at least reimburse that person for their costs?
The costs of the boarding home includes accommodations, meals, light snacks, as well as ground transportation for patients, as I have already indicated. The cost of the boarding homes is in the range of about $200 a day. The boarding homes provide a variety of meals throughout the day, and they try to have traditional food on the menu when it is made available to them.
When given notice, Mr. Speaker, when somebody lets them know, the boarding home can also accommodate specific medically required diets, things to help individuals who are diabetic or cardiac patients who have a low-salt requirement. However, they are providing food for a large number of guests, and personal preference cannot always be accommodated, but if the person has some dietary issues, if they let them know, it can often be accommodated.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Minister for that answer. With the challenges that we are facing in trying to get people to be non-medical escorts here, will the Minister look at developing a policy or, even better, come up with a way to compensate future non-medical travel escorts so that they can continue to provide this valuable service to patients obligated to travel to meet their medical needs? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We do have a number of revisions to the medical travel policy currently under development. I hope to share those proposed revisions with the standing committee in the next couple of weeks, if not next month for sure.
I can tell you that increasing financial supports for non-medical escorts is not one of the proposed changes, so compensating them for time away from work is not one of the changes that we are proposing. As part of our work, Mr. Speaker, we have reviewed medical travel programs from across the country as well as other jurisdictions. Except for Nunavut, the benefits that we are providing here are far greater than most other jurisdictions. We are basically on par with Nunavut. Our system needs to rely on friends and family supporting patients who are required to travel. Further, Mr. Speaker, our system is designed to help offset the costs, not cover the costs or cover all costs. If patients aren't able to find an escort to support them in their medical travel journey, the authority will work with patients to help develop solutions.
I should also note, Mr. Speaker, that in 2016-2017 we had over 5,500 medical travel cases where an escort was involved. Increasing benefits or compensating escorts for their time away from work would have a significant impact on system costs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister responsible for the Power Corporation, and they are with regard to the future development of mines in the territory, and in particular in the North Slave region.
Mr. Speaker, we know that energy is, of course, one of the largest costs to running a mine. Hard rock mines, in particular, use nearly twice the energy that diamond mines do, but at the same time we are trying to attract global investment to come here. We know that other jurisdictions around the country have power and energy at a fraction of the cost of what we can charge here.
The Yellowknife area, for example, is 37 cents a kilowatt hour. Other regions, it is 8 cents a kilowatt hour. I would like to ask the Minister: what is the Minister going to do to make the cost of power in the NWT competitive in the world marketplace? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister responsible for the NWT Power Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Of course, we are interested in these types of developments. We do realize that the cost of power is quite high in the Northwest Territories, particularly in comparison with some other jurisdictions, such as Quebec and Manitoba. We are in discussions with mining companies because we do hope that we will have additional customers, because the only way really of keeping prices down is to find new customers, either here in the Northwest Territories or by exporting power to the south. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate what the Minister has to say in that the territorial government certainly does recognize mining as a large part and a central part of our economy. Frankly, mines currently have no option but to rely on carbon fuels for their operations. Unfortunately, they also happen to be some of our largest emitters, followed by the transportation industry, which also is primarily because they, too, support the mines.
The GNWT, we are proposing that we need to significantly reduce our carbon emissions. I would like to ask the Minister: how does the Power Corporation intend to help the Government of the Northwest Territories meet our greenhouse gas targets while promoting mining?
The Member opposite is quite correct. The mining companies are some of our largest emitters. In the future, it would seem to me likely that the only way to radically reduce those levels of emission would be by supplying a hydro power. We would have to look and we would be prepared to look at hydro expansion, whether Taltson or otherwise.
I appreciate that reply. That all leads me into my last question: does the Minister see any realistic options other than the large-scale hydro dams or transmitting power from the Canadian grid to provide reliable environmental sustainability? Does the Minister see, other than big mega projects, what are the other alternatives that mines have in order to produce affordable energy?
As I mentioned, the Power Corporation has been in discussion with several mining companies, looking at other alternatives such as LNG. However, as I said, long-term, it seems to me that the most efficacious way of reducing the greenhouse emissions would likely be by hydro expansion, whether a large project like Taltson or a smaller expansion of other hydro projects.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for your indulgence for one more question. I appreciate that I said the last question was my last question, but in fact I would like to know if the Minister is having any discussions around the idea of nuclear, in particular, molten-salt reactors and mini nuclear reactors, and is that a power option that the Minister is considering? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I think we would be prepared to look at any options, though nuclear wouldn't seem to be the top of the list. It is a controversial form of supplying power. Thank you.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On Friday I made a Member's statement about dialysis in the NWT. I would like to ask Minister of Health and Social Services some questions on that. I would like to know if the Minister could possibly commit to looking at providing accommodation in locations where individuals go for dialysis. At this point, I am thinking that the majority of the patients come to either Yellowknife, Hay River, or into Alberta to get their dialysis. Dialysis is something that happens three times a week for approximately four to five hours per session. The travel on top of that is a bit much. I would like to ask the Minister: would the Department themselves look at accommodation in those communities? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, right now we deal with them on an individual basis depending on where the individual is coming from, how long they have to be in the community, whichever community it happens to be, whether it's Hay River or Yellowknife, for their treatment. If they have to stay overnight, obviously we will be accommodating them. If they are in during the day, we will certainly transport them to the facility and transport them back to the airport.
Mr. Speaker, when it comes to dialysis, we have expanded our dialysis services here for the Northwest Territories. We have peritoneal dialysis available through a partnership with the province of Alberta, so that people can do dialysis in their homes where possible and where appropriate. We know this is a fairly invasive procedure. We want to work with our residents to create the simplest and most humane process for dealing with dialysis. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I agree that home dialysis is an option. Staying with that type of dialysis, I would like to ask the Minister if there could be more family members, for each individual who would be receiving home dialysis, more family members trained? I had an elder who was on dialysis in the community of Lutselk'e. At one point, he felt like he was really burdening his daughter-in-law. Apparently, she was the only one who was trained to give dialysis. I would like to ask the Minister if there is an option to train several family members on home dialysis for patients.
With the peritoneal dialysis, which is the one that is done at home, the patient and their support person have to go to Alberta for a couple of weeks to actually be fully trained on how to provide that service, and then they are actually supported by the Alberta Health Services in their delivery. They have a constant contact with that individual.
I hear the Member. I mean, yes, people go on holidays. People may be out of the community. It is a burden. I hear the Member. I will have the department look at it to see what it would take to provide that training to more than one person so that there is that flexibility. I don't know what those costs would be, so I am not prepared to commit 100 per cent to actually doing it, but we will explore it to see what the costs would be and how we can work with our residents to make this process as safe and seamless as possible.
As you can imagine, there are various ways that dialysis can be provided to patients. I would like to ask the Minister if they would look at the option of providing dialysis in health centres. I recognize that there may be a community with no patients on dialysis, so then we would not necessitate that, but something that is easy to move into a health centre. It may be a little bit better system than what they have in the home, but to having something in the health centres where dialysis patients exist, I would like to ask the Minister if he could look at that option.
Hemodialysis is a very complex process. It actually involves removing the blood from the human, putting it through a machine, and inserting it back into the human. It is very complex. You need highly trained individuals to do it, and the machines need thorough cleaning after every use to make sure that there is no contamination or harm caused to our patients.
It is a very complex process. We are putting it in our hospitals. We have put it in Stanton. There is an expanded area in the new Stanton for dialysis. We have put it in Hay River. There is an expanded area in Hay River where it is. We have to work with our individual patients on a one-on-one basis. Sometimes their level of treatment is different than, say, somebody else's.
Having said all that, Mr. Speaker, there are mobile hemodialysis units that have been utilized in other jurisdictions, and we have explored that to see if it is a possibility. However, in the Northwest Territories, road access, road maintenance, and the quality of some of the roads, given the fragile nature of the machines, as well as some of the water supply we would need -- we need sterilized water; we need water that has no other chemicals and no other things in it -- really limits our ability to do the mobile hemodialysis.
When it comes to individuals with complex needs, we do transport them from their communities to where the service is available. In some cases, we have had to do some medical relocation, working with the families to bring them to those communities where the service is on a permanent basis.
We are open to being flexible, but at the end of the day, whatever we have to do or whatever we are going to do has to be safe, and we are not comfortable that the mobile hemodialysis is appropriate for the Northwest Territories at this time.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the mobile dialysis that the Minister spoke of also exists in Alberta. They have it set up on a bus. I know the Minister knows all this, but I would like to ask the Minister if he could at least look at that system that Alberta has, where they have retrofitted a bus in order to handle a dialysis machine or a couple of dialysis machines. I recognize that the cost is probably over $2 million, but I would like to ask the Minister if they would look at that and see what success Alberta has had with that system. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We have already had a cursory look at that, and one of the benefits they have is high-end highways that are paved, smooth, and they are usually transporting or going between communities that are a little larger, that have access to the sterilized water and the other things that they need to make sure that the equipment is properly cleaned and those types of things.
In light of the fact that many of our roads aren't paved in the Northwest Territories, and we don't always have direct access to the level of sterilization in the water that would be necessary for hemodialysis, recognizing how complex it is, we didn't feel that it was safe at this time to pursue that option, which is why we have entered into a partnership and arrangements with Health Services in Alberta to do the peritoneal dialysis.
As I have said, from time to time, we have had to enter into one-on-one relationships that have resulted in medical relocation. We don't have a policy on that, but it is something we are exploring because it may become more necessary.
Having said all that, Mr. Speaker, we all need to work together to encourage healthy living, healthy eating, exercise, and living as healthy as possible, so that we don't have to go down this road of dialysis. It is an invasive procedure. It is life-saving, yes, but for the most part, people who live healthy lifestyles will be able to avoid this particular treatment. I think we need to, as Members, focus more on prevention to avoid having to need this service in the future. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
