Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for that, but I just want to remind the Minister and the government that they are responsible for all people in the Northwest Territories. During this COVID-19 pandemic, please provide services to my people who I represent in Nunakput and across the delta. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I take that as a comment.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Justice in regard to the corrections staffing at our correctional facilities. The Minister made reference to a report, a workplace assessment report that was commissioned by the deputy minister of the Department of Justice. Did the Minister plan to table this report? If yes, when? If not, how does the Minister intend to be transparent in how they will deal with the concerns raised by staff in the report? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister of Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Member for her persistent advocacy on behalf of her constituents. This is a very concerning situation with some history. The Member's statement was quite a retort to my statement, and it explained the long history of this. I will not be tabling that report. When this report was initiated, the staff were told that it would be kept confidential.
While there was obviously a risk of it being released once it was distributed to all staff and to other parties, that was a risk that we knew we had to take. Despite the fact that it is publicly available, I will still be treating it as confidential and upholding that bargain that we had with staff. However, I have committed to providing updates as we make progress because, if I do not stand up here and say what we have been doing, it could just be another report that gets shelved. If I don't hold myself publicly accountable, we risk that happening, so I will do my best to ensure that we keep the public and the Members updated. Thank you.
I hear the Minister saying that he won't table the report because it was completed by employees with the intention that their words would be kept confidential, so I can only respect the Minister's decision for that one. In regard to what the Minister said today, the Minister made reference to a deputy ministers' meeting that was held in December where they discussed updating training, more recruitment, recertification. This House has seen an influx of training and an influx of dollars before. I'm just wondering how this will be different than what this House has heard before, and how this is actually going to create the change that Ministers before this one, and now this Minister, has also said will come as a result of these moves.
The Member is right to be sceptical. She wouldn't be here if she wasn't; none of us would. Governments say lots of things, and sometimes they don't happen. I don't know if there is anything I could say that would assure me as a Regular Member. It has to be proven. We have to actually do the work. We have to come back on a regular basis and show that we're doing the work, and that's really the only way to prove ourselves.
I will note that there was one difference, something that's never been done before. That is that this is not just an effort of the department, and it's not just an effort of the department staff. We also have the UNW involved at a level they've never been involved at before, with reporting to the deputy ministers of Finance, of Justice, and to the president of the UNW. I think that gives a much stronger voice to the staff than has happened previously, and it's going to force a lot more collaboration and more positive outcomes.
One of the common undertones of what I'm hearing from the Minister today, I believe, has to do with communication; communication amongst staff, communication with members of the department, and also communication with this House and with the public. I think that's really, really important, an important kind of undertone to carry through this entire process. With that, what I'd like to know is: Part of getting buy-in for this process and from front-line staff is including them in it. In order to create positive change, the people who you are trying to create change for need to be involved in the process. Also, given that each of our facilities, our correctional facilities in the Northwest Territories, are so different and have such a different clientele, I am wondering what the Minister will do to ensure that staff are part of the process and have a say in what changes occur and how they occur at each facility.
I think communication causes most problems, not just in corrections, but everywhere. Lack of communication really leads to misunderstandings; it leads to problems not being resolved. The first thing that happened after this report came out is that senior staff, senior management, went to the different facilities. They presented this information, and they listened to the staff to hear what they had to say directly, not through a consultant. From that, they are compiling a "what we heard" report so that they can then distribute it to staff and say, "Are we hearing you correctly?" Because, sometimes, when you tell the government something, they don't necessarily hear what you're saying. Maybe they hear what they want to hear, so we are starting a feedback loop. That is one of the first things.
As part of the plan going forward, there is also a communications plan, so that everyone will know how they are going to be engaged and you can ensure that it's happening. There will be something to fall back on or to check off the list: This has happened. That's going to hold people accountable for making sure that communication happens.
As everyone here knows, communication is tough. Sometimes things change quickly, so we just have to put the effort into it and do our best. That's the plan. I think, if there was better communication 20 years ago, the Member wouldn't be able to make that statement about all of the past statements that have been made, so this can be beat. I've talked to some employees from the correction service, and they tell me about times when things were good. There were times when there was good communication between staff and management, and so I know it can happen again. This is not something that we can't overcome.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I heard the Minister refer to two separate reports, one just now and one in their Minister's statement. The one in the Minister's statement was an HR plan, and this one was a "what we heard" report. I'm wondering if the Minister can clarify if those are two separate reports or one and the same, and if both reports are intended to be tabled in this House during this session or when we can expect to see them in committee, as well. Thank you.
There is an overarching framework here that is going to guide how we move forward. Under that, there is a communications plan, so everyone knows how people are going to communicated with. The "what we heard" report is really when the management went out in December and talked to staff. They put together a report saying, "This is what we heard. Are we hearing you correctly?"
Those are all different documents. There are a number of moving parts here. I'm happy to keep the committee updated to the best that I can. There are some operational and security sensitivities with things like the framework that would prohibit me from tabling a document like that. That being said, we do have to prove that we are making progress, so we'll find a way to ensure that committee is kept up to date. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have all heard of Brian Sinclair, Joyce Echaquan, and our own Hugh Pakik. These situations were caused by someone's opinion. Who advocates before it gets this serious? My question for the Minister of Health and Social Services is: What option does someone have immediately if they feel they are not getting the help they need or feel that they have been treated unfairly or with discrimination in the Health and Social Services Department, which includes the hospitals, clinics, health centres, and social services offices?
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate the question. My suggestion would be that the person and/or the people who are with that person speak to the nurse in charge or the patient care coordinator. If they continue to be unsatisfied with the answers, they should call their MLA, who will be able to direct them to quality assurance and other resources that will help them to be heard. Thank you.
Next time, I will make sure, when I'm treated badly, I'll call myself; and I did. Would the Minister consider a position in each of the hospitals or regional centres that would assist with being an advocate for patients who need help navigating the system? Because not everybody, when they come in from a small community, knows where to go, knows how to communicate, and they are afraid of the healthcare system. We do have history of not trusting the healthcare system in this country, Indigenous people.
I'd like to think that everybody in our large healthcare facilities, and in our small ones, too, is a navigator who is there to help patients access the care that they come to the hospital or the healthcare centre for. We do have the quality assurance people, although they tend not to be standing in the foyer of the hospital, ready to give advice, but there are people who work at the front desk in the Inuvik Regional Hospital and at the Stanton Territorial Hospital who should be able to direct patients to the places they need to go and to direct them in the language of their choice. We have committed to providing culturally safe healthcare, and being able to direct people efficiently and in their language is certainly central to that.
I hear the Minister, and I hear what she says. We do have great staff, but not necessarily are these staff trained to be able to understand a lot of the systems. This government assisted Aurora College to create a nursing program 20-plus years ago. We've had 20-plus years of graduates of nursing. The goal of that program was to have Indigenous nurses working in their own communities for their own people. It's still not happening.
I would like to ask the Minister again if we can have patient advocates and have them be nurses in these hospitals. If we can't have nurses in these hospitals, then can we at least have nurses who can help our Indigenous people work through the system, if they feel that they have been discriminated against or if they don't even understand what they are doing? They're missing appointments. Their medical travel is being booked on the day before they have to leave, and they have no escort. There are multiple things, but I think it needs a health background to be able to navigate the system.
I understand what the Member is getting to there, that medical travel to a larger facility like the Inuvik Regional Hospital or Stanton Territorial Hospital can be quite a daunting prospect, and people may not feel comfortable asking the questions that they need to in order to have the answers that they need to navigate the system. I am not aware that there is a particular navigator who is on call in Stanton Territorial Hospital or in the Inuvik Regional Hospital, but that is certainly something that I can inquire about.
I think the longer-term solution is to continue to train people in cultural competency so that they have a better understanding of some of the history and background that people bring to healthcare with them, a background of not being served well, in some cases not having good interactions, and to be able to work with people on the basis that they are not comfortable, likely, right where they are and who need some additional help.
Thank you Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hear the Minister. I know that we are supposed to be rolling out a very detailed cultural awareness campaign soon, and all of the GNWT staff are going to be there; but there is no course in the world that is going to change somebody who doesn't want to take it. That's the issue. These are the issues. Our people are still going to be afraid of the healthcare system, so they're not going to speak up; they're not going to advocate for themselves. I, again, just want to push the Minister to really look into these types of positions for our people in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I realize that there is no easy fix in this area. I don't believe that cultural competency training is optional in the Health and Social Services world. We have committed ourselves to providing culturally sensitive care, in part because of the case that the Member spoke about and other more recent cases that we have heard about on the news. We want to provide a service in which all people in the NWT, whether they are newcomers to the NWT or they have been here since time immemorial, feel comfortable accessing the services that they need to live their best lives. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Can the Minister tell us what her department is doing to increase supports for seniors who are aging in place and maybe feeling the mental health impacts due to the restrictions around COVID-19, and whether or not she plans to increase those supports, given the CPHO's orders are likely to remain in place until the fall? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am happy to say that there are a number of services in place for seniors. Because homecare is in place in most communities, they have been providing some additional supports, such as phone calls and visits, that are above and beyond what they would have provided before COVID. In communities where there are usually day programs, there have been staff who have been reassigned to provide support one-on-one with people because people are not gathering for the day program at this point, given the COVID-19 pandemic.
Within long-term care, there have been extra efforts to screen residents for depression, knowing that that is a possibility, as well as providing for family and friends to visit in very controlled circumstances; to deliver letters on behalf of families; to organize virtual calls, so that there is that connection between the people in long-term care and the people who love them.
As well, the mental health supports that are available to every person in the NWT are, of course, available to seniors, and that includes the Community Counselling Program, which I spoke about earlier; the NWT Help Line; and the on-the-land healing fund, anything that the community is doing with on-the-land; and of course, through their healthcare provider. If they disclose that they are feeling depressed or lonely, it will be a response by the primary healthcare provider to assist the senior to find the services that they need. Thank you.
I was asking about aging in place, not necessarily about the seniors' homes, but I am glad to hear that they are doing that. I don't really think that many of the seniors who are isolating and feeling the depression of COVID impacts are going to be heading out on the land, so I am not sure that that's really a support to seniors aging in place. Moving on, I would like to know how many people are over the age of 60 in the Northwest Territories, and how many of those seniors have received at least one round of the vaccination?
According to the NWT Bureau of Statistics, as of July 1, 2020, there are approximately 6,594 persons aged 60 and older in the NWT, and I will have to get back to the Member with the number who have received vaccines who are over 60.
When the Minister returns with that information, I am going to guess she is also going to have to come back with the next question I have, which is: What is the current COVID vaccine distribution broken down by demographic group?
I have also asked the Minister, and not received a response, to how many extra doses have been given out. A response received of "we're not tracking that" is not acceptable to me. All you need to do is take the number of appointments you have, the numbers of doses administered, and subtract them to find out how many extra vials have been opened and distributed to people of non-priority groups.
We are giving the vaccine on a priority group basis. Everybody who lives in a small community without a resident nurse and who is over 18 has had the opportunity to receive the first dose. We have also, of course, prioritized people who live and work in long-term care and other congregate settings like jails and shelters. We have also prioritized frontline staff because of their connection to healthcare, and we have prioritized people who have chronic or multiple medical conditions. We have not broken it out by demographic. It is broken out by need, as determined by the Chief Public Health Officer. That's how it has been broken out.
The question about tracking the number of people who have had doses: We have given out 12,241 doses so far. We are, to be perfectly honest, putting a lot of time into keeping up with the Public Health Agency of Canada reporting, and we have no additional time to answer the Member's question.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not really very concerned with how the department would report their statistics. The priority groups actually would be considered to be a demographic, the demographic being they are high priority for different reasons. I would still consider that to be a breakdown by demographic group and would appreciate having those numbers.
Moving on, how would seniors who are not technologically savvy reach out to the department to get help navigating not only the COVID vaccine forms online, but any other online services that they may be required to use? Is there a specialized help line for seniors to call that will actually be answered and they can get people to walk them through the programs? Thank you.
As the Member may know, there is a helpline for seniors. Seniors could call there. They could call their local health centre. They could call the system navigator, health system navigator. I invite the Member to look that up and put it on her Facebook page. We, as a department, realize that people at different ages have different communication styles. We are fully aware that elders are generally not using computers and other digital methods of communication, so we have made an effort to communicate with them on local radio stations, through the newspaper, through posters, and even through door-to-door visits in some cases, to make sure that they are aware of the opportunity to be vaccinated. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. My question is for the Minister of Finance on the Government Renewal Initiative. The Minister announced back in October, the Government Renewal Initiative, but it was a little bit lean on details. Can the Minister provide any more details now on the steps, stages or phases of the Government Renewal Initiative, how Regular MLAs will be involved, and how it is going to be communicated to our workforce and the general public? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister of Finance.
Mr. Speaker, I actually love talking about government renewal, but I'll try not to take the full ten minutes. We're starting out right now with the Department of ECE and Department of Finance. The government renewal process takes two steps. I should start by mentioning that all departments have been involved quite extensively in terms of looking at government renewal and looking at the program evaluation process in understanding how it's going to unfold. This has certainly been a government-wide process, government-wide initiative, and one that I think has already been well-communicated within government departments, and materials have already gone to committee. I'm happy to do a detailed briefing with committee and provide even further information to them.
I can say that, when a department goes through the process that is envisioned as of right now, that we're looking at two parts. The first part is to gather the information about the programs, do an inventory of what programs are there, and to then go through an evaluation system of those programs. There will be involvement from frontline workers. That is critical that the frontline workers be involved. They are often the ones that understand where the efficiencies lie and what the value to the residents has been. There's quite a bit that I could unpack within all that, Mr. Speaker. I will leave it at that, and see if there is, perhaps, another follow-up that could guide what direction or what further information the Member is looking for at this time. Thank you.
I want to thank the Minister for the Minister's statement in response to my question. Look, I want to be generous here. The Minister has shared information with us as Regular MLAs. My questions here today are to try to get this out into the public because nobody really knows what is going on. Can the Minister tell us: She just mentioned that Finance and I believe Education, Culture and Employment are the first two departments that are going to be up for review. Is there a full schedule that she could provide to, perhaps, table in the House so that the public and our workforce knows what's going on?
I can certainly provide the expected schedule of having two departments go through the process over time, and we're looking in general to maintain one larger department and one smaller department going through the process. The reason for that is: Essentially, it's internal capacity. The certified evaluators that we have, the financial analysts that we have, and individual departments, it is quite a lot of work for them, and we're trying to do this by funding internally as much as possible using different types of techniques. Trying to manage doing it quickly, but still doing it in a way that we can, again, not overburden departments as we go through. Yes, ECE and Finance are the first two up, if you will, and we're expecting this to take somewhere between three and four years to cover all 11 departments. I can provide how we expect that to go for each of the two parts for two sets of departments over time. I'll be happy to provide that.
I want to thank the Minister for that, and I look forward to seeing that document tabled in the House soon. Just in case anyone's interested, I do believe in a program, a strong program evaluation, but I'm just not sure the Government Renewal Initiative is the right way to go about this. I'm also worried that short-term savings will eclipse long-term benefits, and that the differential impacts of changes on disadvantaged populations will not be adequately considered. What assurance can the Minister provide that the Government Renewal Initiative will adequately consider the long-term and differential impacts of changes to programs and services?
I can't say enough: This isn't simply a reduction exercise. By going about this in a way that is methodical and that relies on evaluation rather than just cherry-picking or targeting from somewhere within senior ranks of what programs or services we think might not provide value, that is not the way to make an evidence-based decision about good government value. That is exactly why we want to go department by department, why we want to actually look and do that inventory as to what is, in fact, being offered and then involve the frontline workers to ensure that we understand the true value and benefit of all the individual programs and services that we offer. This is a way to be, in fact, evidence-based when we're making decisions, and not just say that we're evidence-based. We're going to go out and actually gather the evidence that shows the government what we do, what we do well, and where we have duplication.
This is actually a chance to plug one other thing that matters deeply to me, and that's the GBA plus, gender-based analysis plus approach to making decisions within the government. You will recall that I had said that all decisions are now going to be analyzed with that lens of GBA plus, which looks not only at gender but all identity factors. Although we have that now, it's happening, it is working its way through, I still think there is a lot that can be done there. As we go through this process, that lens can continue to be brought forward. I am confident in saying that we're going to be looking at how government renewal, how the programs and services we offer are impacting different people in different ways, and doing so, as I've said, I believe, in the budget speech, so that we are more equitable across the Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for her passion today. I'm worried, though, that a lot of time and effort is going to go into this Government Renewal Initiative and it will not deliver the results we need to have our government going off a fiscal cliff. I think that's being driven by overspending on large infrastructure projects. We need to make some tough decisions and choices now because we can't possibly accomplish all the items in Cabinet's mandate. What assurance can the Minister give me today that the results of the Government Renewal Initiative are going to be delivered on time rather than making tough decisions right now? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
We have to. I'm inclined to sit down. I suspect that that, in response, won't be satisfactory to my colleague across the floor. We have to get this right, and we make tough decisions all the time.
Today, we tabled a $2 billion budget. In order to make tough decisions, it is better, in my view, to do that based on evidence and to do that based on evidence that is gathered methodically and to do that in a way that is based on evidence that looks at programs and services across the Northwest Territories with a vision of value. We want to have value and not just -- it needs to be methodical and evaluative. That, Mr. Speaker, is really at the core of what the Government Renewal Initiative will be.
The first two departments that go through, Finance and ECE, should have those processes complete in time to see impacts on the business planning that goes through for the next budget cycle. That, then, will allow everyone to see that we can, in fact, be making tough decisions. It will, in fact, demonstrate where those decision points may lie. The tough decisions happen all the way through. I mean, budgeting is a process that I've said many times is cyclical. It takes all year. In fact, I suspect the folks over in Finance are going to be starting on the 2022-2023 budget very soon.
Tough decisions have to happen continually. We can't wait until the future, but we also can't put all the eggs in the basket and say that it's all because of the infrastructure plan and the infrastructure projects. If we don't have infrastructure, we don't have health or education or corridors for communications or trans-border energy. It is not one thing that is driving the challenges that we have financially or fiscally; it is all the things. On budget day, this is my chance to give one more mini budget address, I suppose. We have to do all the things, and we have to make those choices. We're going to do it with evidence, and we're going to do it with evaluation. That's our way forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
