Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am very pleased to recognize a constituent of Yellowknife South, Caroline Wawzonek. Caroline has indicated that she will be a candidate in the upcoming election in the riding of Yellowknife South. I wish her every success. Thank you.
Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize three constituents from Yellowknife North today. First, we have visiting, a long-time community advocate and social advocate, well-known in Yellowknife for all of her hard work, Arlene Hache. I want to congratulate her for her announcement today. She has been selected to be on the National Advisory Council on Poverty. Congratulations, Arlene.
I also want to acknowledge Josee Clermont, who is the directrice generale for College nordique francophone, and of course, a man of many hats, Yellowknife North resident Mr. Tony Whitford. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Congratulations, Ms. Hache, on your appointment. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I would like to welcome the executive director of the NWT Seniors' Society to the gallery, Suzette Montreuil. She is also a Frame Lake resident and just happens to be my wife. I haven't really seen a lot of her in the last ten days, so hi, honey. Thanks for being here and there at home. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Must be the last few days of session here. Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize two people in the education field, Ms. Suzette Montreuil with the Commission scolaire, and also Ms. Josee Clermont with the College nordique. I do want to say that, College nordique, we have had many meetings working with them on advancing our post-secondary education. It has been very, very good. I am hoping that the next Assembly will carry forward the great work. By working together, we provide a better education. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have had the honour of doing a lot of work over the years and being on the front lines and doing some great health promotion work with a great team. As Members know, I am leaving. Up in the gallery, I would like to recognize Elsie DeRoose, who was a strong mentor and strong leader within the health promotion. I am really glad that she is here in the gallery today. It is really good to see you. I just want to thank you for all of the support and the work that you have done.
As always, Anthony J. Whitford, I know that you made some time to come and join us here today, so I just want to say thank you and mahsi, and mahsi to Elsie. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize Mr. Alphonse Nitsiza. Mr. Speaker, Alphonse is one person who works for Indigenous government. I mention that a lot, and coming from that background, I have a lot of respect and I look up to Alphonse and all of the hard work he has done for the Tlicho region, especially for the outlying and remote communities. I would like to welcome Alphonse and, once again, thank him for all of his hard work. I look up to that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize two of my constituents who have joined us today, Ms. Caitlin Cleveland and Ms. Elsie DeRoose. Thank you for being here today and taking an interest in our proceedings.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. It's that time of year again, and I apologize to him, but I have to get these questions out. I want to talk to him about medical travel and the utilization of the Fort Nelson hospital again. Can the Minister advise the House whether his department and NWT HHSA have been able to complete the MOU for the residents of Fort Liard and Nahanni Butte to access services in Fort Nelson that are referable where possible? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The territorial authority has been working with the healthcare services in Fort Nelson to develop an agreement on how people from Fort Liard, as well as Nahanni Butte, will receive services in Fort Nelson.
Unfortunately, the MOU hasn't been completed at this time, but we are working on it. The agreement will define the process for how NWT residents are referred to health services in Fort Nelson and how they can actually be referred back to the health and social services system here in the Northwest Territories.
Senior staff from the authority in the Deh Cho region will be travelling to Fort Liard in the next few weeks to share a review of the standard operating procedures with the community health centre staff. This really, Mr. Speaker, is the necessary first step which provides access to services in BC.
In addition, our handouts and posters and brochures have actually been prepared and have been shared with community leaders and residents to make them aware of these procedures, for accessing these procedures in Fort Nelson. We are hoping that these will be distributed at that time when they're meeting which will, hopefully, be September of this year.
It kind of led into my second question, but I appreciate the Minister's answer with all that information. Can the Minister advise: when does he think the MoU will be done so the community can actually see it in writing? Right now, they are very happy with the work that the department has done and happy with what Dehcho Health and Social Services has been doing.
Given that the MoU hasn't been completed yet, the standard operating procedures that we have negotiated with Fort Liard actually give us a roadmap, if you will, that the residents of Fort Liard and Nahanni Butte can use. As these procedures unfold, a more formalized MoU between BC and the Northwest Territories can be developed, but we want to see how these procedures work to make sure they're actually doing things that actually provide benefit that will help inform the MoU. That work will continue. It likely will not occur in the life of this government, the last week that we have, but it will carry on into the next government.
I have to give credit to the Minister and his staff for working on this issue. I know I have been bringing it up for the last four years. They have actually reached out. It's been quite interesting, being at meetings with them there. Can the Minister advise this House: has he made recommendation for the new Minister coming forward that this is an issue that he needs to be kept aware of?
I don't know who the next Minister of Health and Social Services will be, but I do know the work we are doing to support Liard and Nahanni Butte is incredibly important work and is consistent with the mandate of the Department of Health and Social Services, which is to provide care as close to home as possible and to make sure our residents are receiving access to the best care possible. I believe our work with Fort Nelson is consistent with that. I am optimistic and hopeful that the next Minister will continue to see the value that this relationship will bring, and that he or she will continue that relationship.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member's statement, I talked about how one of the issues raised around sustainable was the single use plastic ban that the federal government intends to bring forward across the country. I'm just wondering if the Minister responsible for, I believe, Environment and Natural Resources in this case has had any discussions with his federal counterparts on how the single-use plastic ban will impact the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can understand the Member's concern with the use of single-use plastic bags across the Northwest Territories. As Minister of MACA, I went to a lot of waste sites across the Northwest Territories. I've seen all the white plastic bags that were there, and I can assure the Member that we have had some discussions with our federal counterparts and our colleagues from across the country. I believe we have come out with a strategy on single-use plastic bags. I'm not quite familiar with the details right now, but I'd be more than happy to get those and share them with the Member.
I know this is somewhat forecasting, but we have a federal intention. I guess my concern is for the many businesses who are currently using plastic knives and forks, food services, for example, that they're going to be hit with a lot of costs when this happens. Has the government considered that problem? Are they working with industry to help transition them into this new reality, whether it will be a single-use plastic ban?
Of course, we need to have our conversations with industry. I don't know if the conversations have actually happened yet, at the official level. Again, I would have to confirm that information. I do recognize concern that folks from across the Northwest Territories have about single-use plastic, and I believe it's incumbent on us to try and do what we can to eliminate those across the Northwest Territories
I reflected on the Minister's recent statement on the new strategy, the waste strategy that is coming out, and I think there are a lot of good details in that. How is the department adapting to the lack of recycling facilities? My honourable friend from Nahendeh raised this, as well. Could the department's regional offices, through ENR regional offices, be used as collection points for recycling? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As you have heard the last week or so with some of the questions I have been getting from a couple of the Members on our concern with the wildlife running around in the community, we will do what we can. I don't think I will direct my department to have our officers and local offices collecting recyclables. They have other tasks that they need to do which we feel are a priority, especially the safety of the public. What we can do is to try to work with those who may be able to provide that service for us. I'm not sure what the details are yet, and I'm going to be honest about that. I know we are looking at trying to reduce our single-use plastic, as well.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My final question is: is the department prepared to provide a leadership and kind of a central support role for municipalities as they seek to solve their waste management issues and the coming single-use plastic ban? Is that something the department can do? Thank you.
This department does provide a lot of leadership, and this is another one of those cases where we need to work with our partners. In the environment we operate in the Northwest Territories with all our municipal and Indigenous governments and our partners, we need to do what we can to work with our partners to ensure that unilateral decisions are not being made by this Assembly and implemented. I think it's good counsel to work with our partners to try to come up with strategies and plans that are a benefit to all. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. In my statement today I spoke about the quality improvement plan for Child and Family Services that was tabled earlier this week. As I mentioned, the plan has many strengths, but I do have some concerns. The Minister has often said that too many priorities result in no priorities at all. Can the Minister say why he then endorsed 70 priorities in this plan? Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In coming up with the quality improvement plan, we did actually have more actions that we would like to have pursued, but we did reach out to our staff. We did reach out to stakeholders who indicated that some of them would be very difficult, given that it is a two-year plan. As a result, we did reduce the number of actions. We modified some timelines. We stretched this out over two years. Many of these actions are policy-based. We are modifying our policies to be consistent and current, and we feel at this time that the plan we have is doable within the two-year time limit.
I want to point out that we do see this as a living document, and as we move forward with those actions in that action plan, we recognize that we may find that we may have overreached, or we may not have the capacity to do that within the timeline. We have left the ability to be flexible, to modify our timelines. We also recognize that, at the end of this plan in two years, we will have to reassess where we are and set a new plan forward to bring in the rest of the changes that are needed to make our Child and Family Services system a truly prevention-based system as opposed to the traditional apprehension-based system. There are a lot of things happening. I agree with the Member. I do recognize there is pressure on the staff, but we have also increased the number of positions, 21 new positions as a result of this quality improvement plan, and a third of those positions are focused on design and training to make sure that our frontline staff have the resources they need and have the supports they need to transition their practice from apprehension to prevention. So there are a lot of things happening. We get it. We have got great people. We have listened to them. We removed some actions, and we stretched out timelines on others. It is a living document. We are optimistic we can get this done.
Thanks to the Minister for his response. A second concern I have is about the staff time, the time that is that staff will be spending on compliance processes versus time they will spend with their eyes on their clients. I can understand that this approach is somewhat a reaction to the report from the Office of the Auditor General and to step up compliance, but can the Minister assure us that, despite the focus on process, time with clients will actually improve?
When we came forward with Building Stronger Families, we were hoping to change from an apprehension-based system to a prevention-based system. Building Stronger Families is still the right way to go, but what we realized and what we heard from the Auditor General is we did not have enough feet on the street to make this a reality, and we were overburdening a number of our people, and, as a result, they were not doing the record-keeping that was necessary to ensure that we were monitoring its success and/or failures. We have increased the number of positions in the last budget by 21.
As I said, a third of those will be focused on training and policy development and making sure the program is right, but the rest are front-line delivery. There is a second ask for future years, Mr. Speaker, that we invest in more positions, with a greater focus on things like family advocates or family support workers. We believe that this is an important step and it's a necessary step to provide those families with the supports they need so that they can keep their children with them, so we are no longer taking children from families. That will be a decision of the next government. I think it is an incredibly important decision, and I hope the next government continues to maintain a focus on child and family services and that that does occur.
That sounds like an interesting initiative. A final concern I have which the Minister has touched on is about the systemic changes needed to prevent children from going into care because of issues such as a lack of food and inadequate housing. The anti-poverty commitments, which the Minister has also represented, include a continuum of service and maybe should include a continuum of support. Can the Minister say what kind of prevention is taking place around this issue of neglect driving children into care?
The premise of Building Stronger Families is finding ways to support families so that children do not have to be apprehended. This could be as simple as providing diapers or food to an individual family who might be in crisis at a particular point. We have done a pilot in Behchoko where we actually covered individuals' rent for a couple of weeks when they were in crisis, because we believe that, if those individuals had been taken out of their homes, it would have also resulted in a direct apprehension. We are looking at spreading these concepts and these ideas out across the Northwest Territories to help families. We have also been able to send families' parents out for treatment and to provide short-term placement for kids with family so that they maintain that family relationship.
There are many more things we could do. Many of them will be one-offs because every situation is different, and we need to be flexible enough to do that. Our social workers are receiving more and more voluntary applications, more people coming in on a voluntary basis. I think this is a good thing because, when they come in on a voluntary basis, we can develop a case plan that works for them and is individualized to their needs and allows those children to stay in those families and in those homes. Our caseload is up, Mr. Speaker, but the number of people going into permanent care is down, and I think that is indicative that the concepts work. We failed at reporting. We failed at some of the things that we were trying to do. We have taken from this committee, from this Auditor General, the lessons that we needed, and we are making improvements today.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Minister for the passion that he brings to this issue. Lastly, I want to follow up the statement that I made in the winter about the need for a child and youth advocate. The Minister indicated that his staff could update research on the idea, and I am wondering what progress he can report on this commitment.
As the Member for Yellowknife Centre has already pointed out, we do have a significantly large action plan with 70 items, and our staff have been quite busy. As a result, we have not done that additional research on a child advocate at this point. However, I would like to note that I was a member of the committee that did a review of the implementation of child and family services in the 16th Assembly, and, at that time, I and my colleagues had an opportunity to go and meet with child advocates from other jurisdictions and learn about the roles that they provide. A child advocate tends to be an officer of the Legislature in most of the other jurisdictions. That is not unlike an ombud that we have recently created here in the Northwest Territories. They are usually not singularly focused on child and family services, but instead focus on children's issues that may be through education or justice or other government functions, questions pertaining to the machinery of government offices such as an ombud or Legislature.
If a child advocate were to be created, it would likely be an office of the Legislature. We are all part of that, but it just is not a Health and Social Services pursuit. I would also note that the mandate of child advocates, if you look at what's happening in other jurisdictions and granted this information might be a little dated because it's based on the review we did in the 16th Assembly, but a lot of those services are done by positions we have already created here in the Northwest Territories, like a children's lawyer, the territorial director, the ombud that we have recently created, so some of these positions can do some that work. However, I am also optimistic that, as we get more involved in Building Stronger Families and with a better focus on prevention, some of the reasons that people want a child advocate ombud today might not be as strong if we are more successful with the work that we intend to do. We already know that an ombud is very expensive, and I think that money may be better spent on front-line delivery of services to families. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. As I stated in my Member's statement, some residents of the K'atlodeeche First Nation want to repair their homes but do not have home insurance and so were denied assistance. My question is to the Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. What kind of education or information does the NWT Housing Corporation offer for home-ownership clients, to encourage the need for home insurance? Mahsi.
Masi. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
