Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to take that question on notice as I do not have any specific information about the condition of the Fort Providence health centre. Thank you.
It seems that only the larger centres get all the services and buildings, including victims' shelters, family violence centres, sobering centres, homeless shelters, and the list goes on. Can the health Minister make a commitment to look at instituting a small-sized, long-term care centre in Fort Providence?
Long-term care facilities are for people who need complex medical care from nurses 24 hours a day. They are people who have needs that are beyond families to provide. As a result of the level of care required, these facilities are located in regional centres, and that is a place where there is a broader range of services available and also a greater number of staff who can work with the elders. I realize it's important to keep elders in their communities, but I also realize that, in order to provide them with the care they need for their own quality of life, it may not be possible to do that in the community until the ends of their lives.
Mahsi for that, Minister. It saddens me to know that this government can spend huge sums of money on large-ticket items that are not a priority for Members on this side of the House. Every time a small community wants to offer programs that the larger centres offer, we are shrugged off, making large excuses of "You need qualified people." Those qualified people can be relocated or new positions created in the small communities to accommodate so that we can have this program. No, we cannot have something that will stimulate our much-needed local economies, that will include creating much-needed jobs. Can this Minister of health begin the process of providing all the small communities with the much-needed programs offered by the large centres so that our residents do not have to flock to the regional centres?
Thank you for that question. It is a priority of this government to help elders to age in place, and there are many things that need to be lined up in order to make that mandate commitment a reality. One is housing, that people have housing that is suitable and affordable for them to live in. The second is that we have a robust home and community care program that can visit more able adults in their homes and provide them with personal support worker services. That could be things like driving the elder to an appointment. It could be cleaning their oven. It could be taking them grocery shopping. It's whatever the elder needs to be able to stay in place. There is a drive now to expand the homecare services to better define what is being offered and where it's being offered, but underpinning all this work is the commitment to have elders age in place. That's where we're at.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. As I have been going on about our elders, our knowledge-keepers, to keep them in our communities, this is so that the children, their children and grandchildren, and other residents of the community can have direct access to them within the community without having to drive out-of-town or to another centre. If they go to another centre, you've got to understand from their point of view, the elders, the ones that are displaced into another centre, that they don't have family around. They're in a totally strange environment. They've never ever left the community that's the Dene people. They know the people. They know the land. They have all their traditional foods available to them right in their community. It is something that I really encourage you to look at, instituting into the small communities to help more. I know you're saying we've got homecare services and everything. That's just not enough. It's to house them into some centres in the community where they can be looked after, and we can hire specialized people to do the care for them. I'd really encourage the Minister to start looking at institutions, have programs for all the small communities in the North. Mahsi.
I take that comment.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Marsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Just to get some context here, just listening to some of the comments and hearing my colleague from Deh Cho. There's a clear picture here. There are some gaps here in our care for our elders. I gave that visual earlier in my Member's statement. There're some gaps here, and I think that we need to really step back and start looking at some of these issues. We've got to find whatever ways we can. Let our elders live in their homes. A lot of our small communities, we look after elders. We have relatives that come and check in on our elders. Quite often, we're not. To get some of the specialized care, there's a gap there.
My first question to the Minister is: if an elder is ill in their homes, what is the policy for local nurses on home visits? Mahsi cho.
Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The nurses in the health centres don't make house calls. Thank you.
It is concerning. I know there are some safety in terms of protecting our healthcare providers, our doctors and nurses from doing home visits. My second question: a lot of our small communities, there are no ambulance services. What does this department do to deal with patients who need emergent care?
Thank you for that question. It's not the role of Health and Social Services to provide ambulance services. That's under the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs. I am assuming that community members drive one another to the health centre. That's probably the most common practice, and I hope that that would still be the practice. In the event that somebody doesn't have a ride close to hand, that person should call 911 and ask them for help to get to the health centre.
Again, this picture has started to get a little more clear for me now, and I think it's important that the Minister of Health and Social Services and MACA do work together on these type of issues. I think it's important. A lot of our small communities, a few are on the floor or someplace and in trouble. It's going to be tough. You'll probably have to get a relative or the RCMP to get the emergent care. That's something to think about. My next question for the Minister is: what proactive measures is this department taking to dealing with patients who need healthcare in their homes?
Thank you for the point that we should be working together. I completely agree. What we're doing about homecare is that in June of this year, the Minister of the time tabled the home and community care review, and it made 22 recommendations for improving home and community care in the Northwest Territories. A number of recommendations have been accepted and implementation work is under way. Some of the other recommendations are dependent on other program evaluation, like the paid caregiver program.
What we're doing here is trying to, I'm going to say, rationalize homecare so that there is a clear set of services that are provided, that these services are available more widely than they are now, and that the service is provided in more hours than it is now, so that it's not just a Monday to Friday 9:00 to 5:00 service, but that there's some flexibility to help people, for example, get to bed in the evening, which they probably don't want to do at five o'clock. We are attempting to make home and community care more effective for people to age in place. That's our ultimate goal.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Marsi cho, Mr. Speaker. That's good to hear there are some measures being put in place. There are these gaps. We still need to keep talking about them. We are still hearing them. I know you are in a new role, and already, we've got you to rise quite a few times already. It just goes to show that there are some really glaring areas of need, like yesterday.
My final question: I think from looking at things, I think homecare nurses might be a good starting point in small communities. I know in my home community of Deninu Kue, we do not have a homecare position per se. Would the Minister commit to creating a homecare nurse position in Deninu Kue? Marsi cho.
The situation in communities without homecare is that the community health nurse is the person who provides the homecare in default. The allocation of resources is really dependent on the number of clients and the types of needs they have, so the allocation of homecare services is something that the department is working on. Depending on the age profile and need profile of people in your community, it may be necessary to assign additional resources, but I can't make that commitment today. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I spoke earlier today in my statement, the Government of Nunavut has an Indigenous procurement policy. The Government of Yukon is developing one. Alaska's business development corporation has done amazing work in this field, and for some reason, despite having constitutionally protected land claims with human clauses in them, we have not developed a comprehensive Indigenous procurement policy. My question for the Minister of Finance is: will we develop an Indigenous procurement policy? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I fully expected a question was going to come about this in the course of this session. Short answer, Mr. Speaker: yes, this is going to be part of the procurement review. Slightly longer answer, Mr. Speaker, is that I want to make sure that it's clear that we will be doing this in conjunction with the Indigenous governments who have those rights in their land claims agreement. Yes, it's coming, but it's going to be coming and it's going to be done the right way, which is in consultation with the Indigenous governments. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, and I fully expect this work to be done in consultation with both Indigenous governments, whether they have that clause, and Indigenous-owned businesses. I recognize this is a large piece of policy work, but can I get a sense of when we expect that work to be completed?
I have a stronger timeline with respect to the more general procurement review that is scheduled to take place. Right now, work is happening to finalize a discussion paper around procurement; not just procurement generally, but procurement, negotiated contracts, northern manufacturing policies, BIP, all of that is going to be subject to this discussion paper, which will be coming out this month or next month with a view to engaging in public consultation and engagement across the board with those participating in the business area, with Indigenous governments, with the public.
My expectation is that that will produce some recommendations by March, with a view to having some changes ready to go by June. Now, that does not necessarily mean that the Indigenous procurement policy will follow that exact timeline, but that will be part of what is happening there. I will be able to give a better update on where that's at, again, once we begin that engagement. Again, simply giving myself, quite frankly, the leeway to acknowledge that, when we are engaging with Indigenous governments, I am not necessarily going to set that timeline unilaterally. That timeline has to be set partly through that process of engagement, but we are well under way to taking those steps.
I look forward to that work, and I recognize the complexity. I hope we can get most of this done by June, because we're about to pass hundreds of millions of dollars of capital and, every year we wait and we have not refined our procurement process, more of that money will flow down South. One of my concerns with this is that a lot of our contracts are 75-cent dollars. They have federal conditions in them. Some of our bigger projects, such as Giant Mine, are purely federal contracting, and I don't think this government has worked to lobby the federal government to make sure we are capturing and putting proper northern benefits into the federal procurement process. Can I get a confirmation from the Minister that this work will include a strategy for capturing federal procurement, as well?
I don't want to get captured with semantics. Being conscious of the fact that we have to be engaged with the federal government when we put forward any kind of procurement policy, and particularly an Indigenous procurement policy, the answer to that is yes. Whether it's going to be a specific federal strategy, I'm a little more hesitant to say, but I believe the Premier has already spoken at other occasions about the fact that we are all tasked with being responsible to go to our federal partners and counterparts to discuss all of these kinds of issues. What I will say is that I will perhaps commit to providing a better update on exactly where we're at and engaging with the federal government on procurement. It is happening; I'm just hesitant to call it a strategy, but we could be more concerted in our efforts and more clear about those plans.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This government in its mandate has a number of very large capital projects: the Slave Geological, Taltson, Mackenzie Valley. We saw a P3, which had a good start to Aboriginal business in its contracting. My concern here is also Giant Mine, which is largely federal-run. Can I get the Minister to provide an update on whether perhaps there is a way to speed up this work and put a little bit more of a focus on Indigenous procurement and northern benefits for our major infrastructure projects? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I have actually asked that exact question about what can be done to speed the work up. What I can say is that, right now, as well as producing the discussion paper, we are also producing the work plan of how this will roll out cross-departmentally, with all of the different departments that are involved. One of the steps that I have asked that we take is to, in that work plan, make the process one where we will be in control of the timeline and able to pull those levers to ensure that the timeline at the very least stays on track, but ideally can move forward quickly. I do have some areas where I am hopeful that, before the end of this calendar year, we will see a few changes to procurement that we can enact even before this takes place, at least on an interim basis. So yes, we are doing everything we can to advance this and accelerate it. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Question 361-19(2):
COVID Secretariat
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Premier in regard to the COVID secretariat. The isolation centres in the Northwest Territories take up 54 percent of the total budget of the COVID secretariat, and so what I'm wondering is: given that the isolation centres are by far the highest cost, what is being done to mitigate this? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister responsible for the COVID-19 Coordinating Secretariat.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are a variety of things that we're looking to do with this. We are, of course, making sure that we're working closely with the Chief Public Health Officer regarding corridors. Where she goes with that will impact on our isolation units, but there are things we're doing. We're looking at perhaps whether we can contract out the services and if that has the potential for better service and for cost savings. Sometimes, that happens. We do have, not a lot, Mr. Speaker, but I want to clarify, a few people who use our isolation centres fairly regularly. We're looking at how we can decide what we should be paying for, what things are mandatory, for example, medical travel, and what aren't mandatory, and how we will address those. Those are discussions we're just beginning, and we will provide to standing committee when we have concluded our results. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I am happy to hear that because, although, yes, things like medical travel are absolutely a requirement for the government to help out with, there is some misuse of the isolation centres happening and it is an expense that is just really unaffordable for the people of the Northwest Territories. I did hear the Minister responsible for the COVID secretariat speak a little on contracting out services, and I'd like to find out more information about what the COVID secretariat is looking at contracting out to local businesses around the Northwest Territories. This not only increases the GDP in the Northwest Territories, but it also creates safety ambassadors across the Northwest Territories when we are educating, informing, and empowering people to help us do the work of safety in the Northwest Territories.
The COVID secretariat actually houses a number of functions. It houses our border controls, it houses our enforcement for COVID-19, for the CPHO orders. It houses 811 and ProtectNWT, our isolation units, and our PPE for anyone who is non-health: our schools, our NGOs, our municipal and Indigenous governments. We are looking to see if we can contract some of those pieces. We have recently identified a local warehouse provider that has the potential to hold our PPE inventory, so that is one area we're looking at. I know that we've gotten questions on the floor about the border down south, in the Smith/Hay River area, Providence, so we're looking at how we can actually perhaps contract out some of those services.
There are areas, though, where we have to be very careful in contracting out; for example, our enforcement. Enforcement usually comes with a set of qualifications and skills. It's a very technical piece. You don't want just anyone showing up at people's doors; that's not a very good idea. We did hear about safety before, already, so that is some of the concerns. At this point, we're not looking at contracting out our enforcement services.
I was happy to hear from the Minister responsible for the COVID secretariat that there is an effort being made to contract services and supplies from northern businesses. What I would like to just stress to the Minister responsible is perhaps also finding ways to use our businesses involved in manufacturing in the Northwest Territories and making sure that they have the opportunity to bid on any form of a contract that comes through.
My next question is in regard to policies. I hear frequently from constituents, and probably the thing that they are most frustrated about is inconsistencies or inequities between policies, and a feeling of unfairness between who policies apply to and who they don't apply to. I hear frequently from businesses and also constituents that they are frustrated by the disjointed communication between the health and safety, the rules, and the government operations around COVID. Can the Premier speak to how the COVID secretariat is going to address these and is going to make changes to better serve the people of the Northwest Territories?
Again, one of the major issues that we had and why we wanted to bring it under one agency, the secretariat, was because the components were all in different departments and sometimes the right hand was not keeping the left hand aware of what was going on. Under the secretariat, it does bring it into one area so that we are on track and we all know what's going on, working together. Communications within the secretariat, we have three positions, I believe, that were in that because, before, communications were spread between every department and, again, it was an issue.
With the secretariat, you will see that we will have better communications getting out there to the public. We will be emphasizing the services, reinforcing the orders, reinforcing the requirements, the safeties, et cetera. However, Mr. Speaker, there always will be some exceptions, and there will always be some things that people will say, "It's not fair." For example, compassionate exemptions, a lot of communities will call and say, "Why is this person self-isolating in my community?" and not realize -- and I will not get into some of the compassionate. However, there are real concerns that sometimes people have to be, for example, end of life, with their family members, so there are exemptions that are made. That will still happen is my expectation.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Final supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. This year, I am sure we will see differences in the actuals of departments versus what they had originally budgeted for, especially, for example, in the area of or the line item of travel. Public servants are not travelling as much as they probably anticipated that they would. Conversely, other departments are going to have much higher line items. For example, Health and Social Services is a great example of that. They are doing a lot more rapid testing and investing in areas that they did not anticipate having to invest in. What I am wondering is: what direction has the Premier provided to GNWT departments to protect against end-of-the-year spending and to address ongoing budget concerns of "if you don't spend it, you lose it," in order to be able to redirect these funds to COVID-19? Thank you.
The end-of-the-year funding is not an issue new to this government. It's an issue that I think people have known about for years and complained about. When I was in the NGO world, before I came here, actually, I noticed that we always got contracts at the end of the fiscal year and did not have enough time to fulfill those contracts. It was always an issue. Therefore, I brought that up in the 18th Assembly when I was a Minister at that time, and I was assured by the Finance Minister in the last Assembly that they were on it and that they were watching it. I challenged them all the time, and I do take heart that that was done. In this government, as well, this has been monitored. Right now, currently, Finance is in the process of doing a detailed review of each department's second quarterly variants, after which a formal direction may be given by the Minister of Finance about unnecessary expenditures. We are watching. We are reviewing it. This is not something that we just started this government. It was started at least in the last government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Oral questions. Member for Monfwi.
Masi, Mr. Speaker. [Translation] The COVID secretariat, I have questions. I had made a previous statement. There is a lot of information that the Northwest Territories do not know about. It is indicated that they will hire 150 new positions and $86 million towards it. [Translation ends]. Mr. Speaker, I wish to question the Premier regarding the new COVID-19 Coordinating Secretariat that will cost us approximately $87 million total today, today's cost. Mr. Speaker, the COVID secretariat is the government's original cost-effective COVID response in favour of burdensome bureaucracy that promises no improvement at vastly increased expense. Mr. Speaker, would the Premier please list other options that she considered before deciding on the costly expansion of our government to form another bureaucracy in the Northwest Territories? Masi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Absolutely. The COVID secretariat was not something that just came up and we said we are going to have a new agency because we had nothing better to do. It came out of trying to do the best we could. Again, when COVID-19 struck, every single department -- and again, I give nothing but credit to those employees who stood up and said, "I will help to try to save our residents of the Northwest Territories." They were doing it off the sides of their desks, some of them doing that full-time and trying to do their normal jobs off the side of the desk. It was unsustainable. Again, I know that I heard that we did not talk about MLAs, we did not talk to the Indigenous governments.
As soon as COVID-19 hit, Mr. Speaker, we met regularly. EIA met regularly, every single week, with the Indigenous governments. We had weekly meetings every Friday, and I know that the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs met regularly with the municipal governments, as well, because I went to some of those meetings, as well, Mr. Speaker. Every meeting we went to, Mr. Speaker, they said, "Provide more. We are scared. Please help us. We want firmer, more border controls. We want more isolation. We do not want them in our communities. We need to have PPE. We are scared. Tell us what to do. Give us a connection." We tried to accommodate, Mr. Speaker, and so, yes, the money did rack up. However, Mr. Speaker, we are talking about safety.
Then again, Mr. Speaker, when I went to the airport -- I still owe an MLA some money for masks -- to pick up some masks, and I had the opportunity to talk to the border patrol at the airports, they were very humble, but they said to me, "Premier, we cannot keep it up. It's not sustainable. We are working seven days a week. Sometimes, we are working double shifts trying to do it." I heard that, Mr. Speaker. I think that the role of this government is really to make sure that the health and safety of people comes first, and I take that seriously, my role in that.
The secretariat is not something that came up because it was something to do. We have not even had time to think of things to do. We have just been go, go, go. The secretariat came up because the Indigenous governments and the people of the Northwest Territories were asking for more supports, and the people who were providing those supports said they could not do it. At the same time, Mr. Speaker, businesses were saying "Open up the GNWT." We had pressure that was saying, "Use your resources. Keep the borders controlled. Keep the isolation," but, "Get back to business." We can't do both, so we make a choice. If the secretariat does not go through within this supplementary, we go back to making a choice, Mr. Speaker: do we have business as usual, continue with these mandates, or do we focus on the secretariat, on the isolation and the border patrols? Those are tough choices I have to make. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
This is an area that obviously a lot of concern at the community level and public. I did not hear any support from the general public or Aboriginal governments to create an $87-million bureaucracy, $87 million that could be better well spent in housing, lack of teachers, special needs, all those issues at the community level, a real issue, Mr. Speaker. It boggles me that we are creating this "Taj Mahal" bureaucracy. It's unthinkable. Mr. Speaker, this was not part of 22 mandates. Mr. Speaker, did we engage the public prior to the prospect of creating another form of bureaucracy for the COVID secretariat?
