I am not sure what that means, but I will look into what the Member is referring to. I do want to talk a little bit about the primary healthcare reform. This is something that the department is working on. It's a long-term commitment, and it will take time to achieve system-wide cultural change. The primary healthcare reform is an initiative that we are advancing, with cultural safety and relationship care as key priorities for Health and Social Services.
I think the evaluation program that I am referencing is in relation to evaluations of nurse practitioners and how they conduct their work within the communities. That's what I was referring to. I understand that complaints are filed with the Registered Nurses Association of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. I, myself, have filed a complaint on behalf of several residents back in November 2019. There has been no action on this file, no notices or acknowledgments that they were received from that association. The Minister stated on February 27, 2020, that the department does conduct internal investigations made against health centre staff. Will the Minister conduct an immediate investigation into the allegations against the health centre nurse practitioners?
The Member is talking about an HR issue, and it is something that our department is looking into. We'll respond back to the Member; however, I'm not prepared to discuss any human resource issues on the floor today.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of ECE. Can the Minister confirm if there is a maximum of $600 per month for single individuals for rent? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can confirm that there is not a $600 cap for rent payable for Income Assistance clients. There was a cap that was changed back in April of 2018. I think, at that time, the cap for single individuals was $900, but that is long since gone. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you to the Minister for that. Can the Minister commit to having his department ensure that residents are eligible for rental subsidies that meet the actual cost of the market rent in the community where they applied?
If a client is eligible for Income Assistance, then they are eligible for the rent and other utilities. It's not a commitment I need to make; it's something that's in the legislation currently.
With the answers of the previous two, will the Minister commit to making sure that his departments are giving accurate information out to clients, or doing some type of information for us as MLAs, or other agencies that may be helping clients with different instances like income support, because we are the Integrated Case Management workers, so that we can make sure we can provide the right information as well?
The Member has brought this issue to my attention, and the department is going to look into what's happening in the Beaufort-Delta, follow up there, and find out where this information's coming from. A lot of this information is publicly available. I can have it sent to the Member, but there is a plain language handbook online, and there is actually the policy manual used in the offices available online, as well, that has the legislation in there, and the description of how that legislation is interpreted. I can share all of that for the Members because I know, as a Regular Member, especially, one who is always in their constituency, you get a lot of Income Assistance questions and concerns. My copies in my constituency office are well worn.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Minister for providing that, although the majority of the people that are usually helping clients in our communities, sometimes, they don't have access to computers, and sometimes they don't have access to providing this material. I have one last question. Will the Minister commit to have his department work with the rental companies, to be able to meet the rental application for the financial commitment? Thank you.
That is something that is supposed to happen, and I will follow up and make sure that that is happening. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to commend all the people of the Yukon who woke up and will never have to change their clocks ever again. It seems what happens here, there's a bit of a gridlock here where Alberta is looking to doing this once again. BC is, California is, and no one seems to want to move. My question for the Minister of Justice is: can we take the lead and get rid of time change?
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister of Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm glad I'm still the Minister responsible for "Justice" and not taking on the mantle of "Time." Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to confirm that staff within the Department of Justice are actively involved with their counterparts. We are keeping tabs of what's happening. We're aware of the progress that seems to be taking place in a lot of other jurisdictions, moving away from time changing. I'm not going to stand here today and say that we will take the lead, but I can say the department is right now quite active on this. If there's an opportunity to take the lead, then, we would look at that, but at the moment, we're going to continue to engage and see what is happening with our partners immediately to the south, as well as in other jurisdictions in Canada. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Not quite the answer I was looking for. I recognize one of the barriers to the Northwest Territories doing this is that Alberta is our largest trading partner, and there's a general desire to be on the same time zone as Alberta. One of my concerns is that they're going out and doing this work right now, and I don't want to get left behind where, all of a sudden, we're not caught up to make sure we can implement this change. I guess what I'm looking for is: is the Minister of Justice prepared to commit that, should Alberta change and get rid of the time zone, we will do so as well?
I was also privy to the news articles about the change in the Yukon. I can assure the Member that the Department of Justice is well aware of what's happening and well aware of the need to be reactive now and not later. What I can certainly say at this point is that, should Alberta make a change, we will be in a position to respond very quickly. It's not a response that would be mine alone, and so that's my inability to commit to that here today on the floor, but for whatever assurance I can give, if there's a change, we will not be delayed in our response.
Given that we want to get this right and given that I think there is overwhelming public support to get this done, I mean, based on everyone I've talked to, could the Minister commit that we will begin some formal public engagement, reach out to the relevant stakeholders such as Alberta, such as the airline industry, and start the steps forward to prepare us to make that change?
I am happy to commit and confirm that we will reach out to our legal counterparts in the other jurisdictions. We will reach out to stakeholders such as airlines, such as computer service providers. As far as public engagement, I think I would be a little more hesitant there in that that can mean a lot of different things depending on the nature of the bill. This change would involve a change to regulations. This is not a change that requires a legislative change; it is the Daylight Savings Time Regulations, I think, I'm not sure if that's quite right, so it's a fairly narrow change that would need to take place. That doesn't necessarily or typically require public engagement, but, to the extent that there are stakeholders and relevant stakeholders that we need to engage with, yes, I will commit to making that motion now.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Justice about the attack on the prison guard at the North Slave Correctional Centre last May. Let me start by saying that I recognize that this Minister was not the Minister at that time. The report into the attack was conducted by two Justice Department staff; in other words, there was no third-party involvement. Why not? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This particular investigation, which was back in May, was not conducted by staff from the North Slave correctional facility, though the Member is correct; it was conducted by other members from the Department of Justice. The nature of the investigation into any incident is responsive to the incident itself, and in this case, this was deemed to be adequate and appropriate.
I would also note, Mr. Speaker, that the RCMP were called and were involved, and the WSCC was involved, so there were responses from a variety of different avenues. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you to the Minister of Justice for that response. The point of third-party investigations or input from third parties in investigations is to strengthen public confidence in the results. Does the Minister believe that that is, in fact, the case and would have been helpful here?
I am confident in the work that was done in response to this incident by our staff, by the Department of Justice staff. That said, that doesn't mean that we can't still, being a new government and looking more broadly at correctional services and more broadly at the work that is done by all corrections staff, always strive to do better. I can say that there is going to be a workplace assessment done about safety and corrections this spring, and that that is, in fact, going to be external to the Department of Justice.
The Justice Minister has delivered some good news, there. I'm not sure who does the external workplace safety assessment, but that seems like a very good measure. There are a lot of loose ends in this report. One, which is just not understandable because of the amount of blacking out, is whether serious incident protocols were followed. Can the Minister assure us that, in fact, these protocols were followed, given the seriousness of this incident?
It's not uncommon in any kind of an incident that there will be areas of improvement. What I would speak to are, in fact, the improvements and responses that were made as a result of this incident. For example, there was additional training provided in January of 2020, so already this year, surrounding the kinds of responses that should be taking place. There have been discussions within Corrections and in the workplace, specifically around when and how to review policy and about refresher training, which does happen regularly within the facility. In addition to that, being aware of the need to be particularly responsive to what is a very difficult workplace, there has, in fact, now been an inter-departmental working group formed with human resources and Corrections to ensure that we're providing the very best staffing and staffing support to our front line, but also to the supervisors within the facility.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Minister for that. The video, which is the information I have to go on, raises a whole bunch of questions. Why didn't the guard on the other side of the door intervene? Why did the guard on this side of the door not have another guard with her? There are many questions that this video raises, which there are no written answers to, in terms of publicly accessible information, or even through ATIP. My question, which I want to repeat again, is about serious incident protocols. I'm sure that the correctional centre has them, and I'm interested to know whether they were followed in this case. Thank you.
There are certain forms of escort within the facility that require two guards to be conducting an escort, and the staff at the correctional facility are aware of that. That policy has been the subject of review, and that has been the subject of review by the staff and by the supervisors at the facility. I am confident, going forward, that they have looked at that, that they have looked at that policy specifically, and that the things that we've done since then, including training in January, including the inter-departmental working group to support the staff, and hopefully, also with the workplace assessment that is coming in the next month or so, that any shortcomings in terms of following policy will not be repeated and that, indeed, policies will be at the very best possible level to ensure the safety of all the people who are working at the correctional facility. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Further to my statement today, I'm wondering if the Minister of Health and Social Services would be able to inform the House of how much the cost of medical travel has increased over the last five years. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the last five years, our medical travel has increased in our department by 43 percent. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I'm wondering if the Minister can speak to what the top three reasons for the increase to medical travel costs are.
The top three reasons for the increase in medical travel -- well, she has asked for the top three; there are many. Medical travel is a complex program, but the top three reasons for the increase in the costs is, number one, the cost for transportation and accommodation has increased; prices for tickets and hotels are increasing. That's number one.
Number two is that we have a number of complex cases where patients require travel beyond Edmonton for more specialized care, and also for longer periods of time, as well as increased number of non-medical escorts who are accommodating patients to travel and, in part due to changes in the GNWT's medical travel policy, to provide these additional supports.
I am wondering if the Minister can speak to what the department is currently doing to address the high cost of medical travel in the Northwest Territories.
To reduce the need for medical travel, steps are being taken for residents to be able to access services in their home community or their region wherever possible. The department and the authorities are looking into identifying options to provide services in the Northwest Territories that residents currently have to travel south for. Some examples are injections for migraines, also the skin surveys, as well as allergy testing. These are some of the areas where our department is looking at efficiencies, as well as we continue to work with our telehealth care to reduce the need for patient to travel outside the community.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Does the Department of Health and Social Services have, or will it be developing, a virtual care strategy so that Northerners can have a clear understanding of the GNWT's view on its future role with Northwest Territories' healthcare system? Thank you.
Yes, the department is certainty looking at developing what we are calling a digital care strategy. This digital care strategy will help us make decisions when to use technology to improve patient care in the Northwest Territories. The virtual care enables health practitioners to meet with each other and with patients over distance will be a key component of this strategy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
