Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Although I heard three questions in there, I think all of them belong to the Minister of Health. I'd like to defer it to the Minister of Health. Thank you.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for Hay River South for the question.
I want to start by saying this isn't the appropriate forum to discuss specific cases or conditions. It's important that we respect the right of patients to their health information.
That said, on the general topic of the specified conditions, the list, which has 58 conditions on it, was inherited from the federal government when we took responsibility in this area in 1988. Some conditions were added in 2011 through the medical director of the time.
The specified disease list is now the subject of a review by the Department of Health and Social Services. There will be public consultation in the summer, and we expect to have a new draft policy available for review by next spring. The purpose of redrafting the policy is that listing conditions is not a very efficient way of dealing with need for extra help with things like prescription drugs. It would be better to look at income and means testing to see what people have for personal resources and what they need in order to pay for the help they need through their specified conditions. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, will the Premier confirm how constituents with diseases not currently listed on the specified disease conditions list are accommodated when it comes to provision of treatment and medication?
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, medical treatment, as the Member knows, is an insured service under the NWT Health Plan. So anyone with appear at any of the health centres, or at Stanton, and expect to receive a diagnosis and treatment for the condition that they are presenting with. That said, we do not cover drugs on a universal basis. There is no universal PharmaCare here or anywhere else in the country at this point.
There is an understanding at our level, and at the federal level, that there is a need to develop a strategy around specified not specified diseases but extraordinary drug costs because what we're finding is there are more of these one in a million cases of disease, and often the treatments are extremely expensive. So there is an acknowledgement that this is a potential problem, and a remedy is in the works. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, will the Premier confirm what is the role of her department when it comes to persons who are indigent and without the financial resources to acquire treatment or drugs for a rare disease such as chronic recurrent multifocal osteomyelitis? Thank you.
Yes, thank you. This answer really turns on the personal resources of the person. In some cases people may be able to access health benefits through their work or through their parents work if they're dependent children. It may be possible if they're seniors. It is possible for them to access support from the GNWT. Likewise people who qualify for Metis health benefits can have their drugs covered and those with the specified conditions.
After that, it may be possible for a person to apply for private health insurance. It may also be possible for a person to apply for income assistance and for a disability benefit if their disease prevents them from working. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my constituent exhausted all other avenues for assistance in covering treatment costs and now looks to this government as his last hope.
Mr. Speaker, clause 8 of the Extended Health Benefits Policy 49.07 states that nothing in this policy shall in any way be construed to limit the prerogative of the Executive Council to make decisions or take action respecting extended health benefits outside the provisions of this policy.
Mr. Speaker, will the Premier confirm the purpose or intent of that clause, and does the Premier see it as a drafter's intent to address policy gaps? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Honourable Premier.
Thank you. Respectfully, Mr. Speaker, it's usually the Premier that would speak on Executive Council issues. So if you're all right, I'll take that question.
So the purpose of the provision in all actually in all policies in the GNWT are similar to that stating that the Executive Council, nothing in the policy shall in any way construe the limits or the prerogative of the Executive Council to make decisions to take action respecting a lot of policies.
And the reason is for that is because although Ministers have specific departments, it's the Executive Council, as a whole, that is responsible for the operations of the government. However, in saying that, we don't get into every single department. That's why we have departments and specific ministers for that.
However, the other thing that's important to say as well is that the matters that are put before the Executive Council themselves are subject to privilege. So I can't publicly actually talk to commit to whether to the Member publicly whether this would come to the Executive or not.
But I do want to say that we do recognize that there's issues with this policy, and I think that the Minister recognizes that as well, and that's why she is looking to do a review of the Extended Health Benefits Policy that's underway now.
I also heard I've had personal conversations with the Member as well, Mr. Speaker, and I also can say that, you know, it's heartbreaking to hear when people fall through gaps, and none of us want to see that. But with the Minister with her work on the extended health policy. And also Canada, there's a national pharmacy program care program that they're talking about as well.
So based on my conversations with the Member, Mr. Speaker, I will make sure that I bring this conversation up with my conversations with federal ministers, to the prime minister, and see how their PharmaCare program can actually interact with our own policies around healthcare. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are related to my Member's statement on the Child and Family Services Act.
I note the intentions of the act are to prevent child abuse within a family unit with the needed education of families to comply with this act. Education First Nations of the act is a winwin for the intent of the act.
Can the Minister advise if the education and awareness of this act has been made to First Nations organizations and has the department advised the organizations at a duly convened meetings of all the regional assemblies. Mahsi.
Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the Member for Deh Cho for the question.
Just by way of background, the Child and Family Services Act came into force in 1998, and it has a provision to be reviewed every five years, and it is being reviewed this year.
The purpose of the act is, and will continue to be, to ensure that the best interests of the child are taken care of. What has changed is that there is more of a focus now on prevention rather than protection. So protection is still present, but prevention needs to be exhausted first.
So there are opportunities for counselling, parenting programs, services to improve housing, treatment if that's required, and any other service that may be helpful to the family to address the issues that they are having and to keep them together, to keep them whole as a family unit.
The act recognizes that the best place for a child is in the family home. And the reason to take the child out of that home is only because they are not safe in that home.
So using this new approach, we have been able to ensure that 92 percent of children who received child and family services are in their own home or in their home communities.
So the practice of taking children out of their communities and cultures is something that we're moving beyond in this era of reconciliation. Thank you.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and mahsi to the Minister for what not answering my original question. But I appreciate her review of it and the fact that it's more on prevention.
Mr. Speaker, an act as such can lead to criminal charges to a family member depending on the seriousness of child discipline. This act has far reaching implications and presence including in the schools, which parents aren't aware of.
My question to the Minister is when are the communities going to be made aware of this act that will and can affect their families? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, this act has been in force for 25 years. And so child protection workers, social workers, have been using this legislation for 25 years. So it's not new.
In the time that I've been Minister and we've started this review of the Child and Family Services Act, I've been in frequent contact with Indigenous governments to ask for their feedback on what they would want to change in this act since we have an opportunity to make changes in this Assembly.
So I'm not sure what the Member has in mind by "making parents aware." If he has a specific case he would like me to look into, then I would encourage him to contact me privately about that. Thank you.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I think what I've been alluding to in my first two questions here is whether communities are even aware of this act. Because I come from a small community. We never hear of the Child and Family Services Act in our communities, let alone the First Nations organizations who are accountable to their members and also all the regional First Nations organizations that I speak to, and they said they never hear of the act or anybody ever approaching their assemblies or meetings to make them aware that there is such an act in place.
And as the Minister alluded, I guess the act has been in existence for some time now. The Department of Health and Social Services has staff on the ground in the communities enforcing this act, but they're not going to our community leadership or the meetings or attending any of our functions.
Can the Minister advise if there are staff in many or all of the communities in the North? Mahsi.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member was not a Member in 2018 when the OAG reviewed the provision of child and family services. But that was a very distressing report, showing significant gaps in the provision of child and family services. The result was an investment of 57 new positions in child and family services across the NWT since 2018.
So I can say that there are, for example, two social workers in Fort Providence. Most communities have resident social workers. Some of the smaller communities are served from regional offices.
The other big thing that's happened is that the federal government passed Bill C92 which enables Indigenous governments to create their own child and family services law. We've had a number of inquiries about this act from Indigenous groups in the NWT. And the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation has already written its law and we are now in negotiations with them on a coordination agreement where we will provide services according to their law.
So I'm a little puzzled by the Member's insistence that nobody knows about this act. But I want to assure him that this is a topic of conversation in bilaterals and at Indigenous government tables often and that there is an opportunity now for Indigenous governments to take control in this area. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Deh Cho.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and mahsi to the Minister for her answer. When I asked questions of lots of my leadership, you know, they'd never heard of the CFS act. The only ones that know about it are the affected families who have been approached and their kids been taken away and then given back to them.
Mr. Speaker, I've been made aware that the CFS staff in Fort Providence will be moved out of the local health centre. I'm aware that they currently have two offices in the building. I see from the supplementary estimates that they will be moved into new leased space within the community.
Can the Minister advise why they need to move the two staff into another leased space when they have adequate office space in the current building? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is a situation where the health centre simply isn't big enough to hold all the staff. I said two social workers. There's actually three social workers, a social work supervisor, and two and a half healthy family workers as well as one family preservation worker. So that's a total of 6.5 fulltime equivalent positions providing social services in Fort Providence, and there simply isn't enough room in the health centre. And so they are going to move that staff group into another location. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. The Minister said the only thing holding us back from renaming the territorial museum is ourselves. I'd like would like to establish what the position of Cabinet is on this issue and what, if any, priority it may have.
Can the Minister tell us whether this government supports and takes responsibility for giving the territorial museum a more regionally and culturally appropriate name within a reasonable timeframe; say, perhaps my lifetime. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can't bind future governments but I'm confident that we will see a name change in the Member's lifetime. I wish the Member a very long life. But the plan has been to as the Member knows, we are working to address some of the infrastructure issues at the museum, some type of retrofit, perhaps a new governance model, and tied in with that would be a name change. Instead of just slapping a new name on an old building, we want to package it all together so it is a new there's a sense of renewal associated with it so it's not just we're doing it for the sake of doing it. We're doing it as well in conjunction with significant other changes. Thank you.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that, and I hope to be present during the renaming ceremony whenever it takes place.
I have to confess to the Minister, I like to hang out at the museum in the archives. He probably knows that.
When I first arrived in Yellowknife in 1985 and visited the museum, there was a fulltime toponymist with a dedicated office and workspace. That's somebody who studies place names. It's not clear to me that we have the same resources dedicated to this important function.
Given UNDRIP article 13 and our government's commitment to implementation, can the Minister tell us how we can fulfill our place naming obligations? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And there is still a fulltime toponymist which is now known as a cultural places officer, and that was renamed about ten years ago, so still 30 years after the Member first arrived here. And then that position does all of the naming work that the Member is talking about. And it is a busy office.
There have been hundreds of name changes and new names made official in the last number of years, and currently there are 424 new and replacement names that have been submitted by the Lutselk'e Dene First Nation, and 13 Indigenous place names in the Naats'ihch'oh National Park Reserve, and we are working to make those name changes happen. So I would say we're one of the leaders when it comes to indigenizing names in the territory, rather making sure their actual names are official names. Thank you.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. Yes, and I too fully recognize the work that's being done by Indigenous governments and organizations, like the Gwich’in Social and Cultural Institute. They've done a lot of work on place names.
But I think that we need a concerted effort and a program to fully recognize and change colonial and racist place names here in the Northwest Territories. It's not clear, you know, whether we actually have such a program ourselves. So I want to ask the Minister whether he intends to fully implement UNDRIP article 13 and whether any additional resources are needed. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No additional resources are needed. We are making our way through hundreds of names, as I mentioned. And we are fully staffed. I know that the Government of Nunavut has had some staffing issues with that toponymist position, but luckily we've been able to maintain staff and are making our way through that.
We do have a geographical and community names policy of the Executive Council, and that guides how communities and geographical features are renamed. And I don't think that there's any sort of, you know, policy adjustments required, any sort of additional resources required. What we need is community engagement and communities to bring forward these needs. It's not up to the GNWT to say what a particular place should be named. It's up to the communities, and the communities have been bringing forward those names by the dozen. And we have been making those changes as they're brought forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. Lastly, I just wanted to follow up on how our territorial museum can better support important cultural practices like the lighting of an Inuit qulliq.
Can the Minister explain whether lighted qulliqs have been allowed in the museum before, what the current policy is, and the basis for that policy for practice. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, Mr. Speaker. Qulliqs have been lit in the museum before, in the auditorium area. There could be arrangements made to have them lit in other areas but a bit of a head's up is needed to ensure that, you know, sprinkler systems are turned off so that we don't damage any of our artifacts and that smoke detectors perhaps are temporarily removed. And that's the situation we found ourselves in, where there just wasn't enough lead time given to make a change like that to allow for one to be lit. And it's an unfortunate incident, and I think there's we would have done things differently if we had known earlier. But I'll leave it at that. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Thebacha.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Justice.
Can the Minister of Justice tell us how many RCMP misconduct cases have been reported and investigated within the NWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Thebacha. Minister responsible for Justice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When people bring forward complaints, they can bring them forward to the RCMP or to a civilian oversight group, the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission.
In 20172018, there were 33 complaints. In 20182019, there were 32 complaints. In 20192020, 32 complaints. In 2021, there were 18 complaints. And in 20212022, there were ten complaints. As of May 13th in this fiscal year, there have been three. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell us if the RCMP investigates their own misconduct cases. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So as I mentioned, citizens can bring their complaints directly to the RCMP in which case, depending on the nature of the complaint, it might be investigated internally by Gdivision. If it is a more serious complaint, an outside agency would be brought in to do the investigation. And if it's brought to the civilian review and complaints commission, they would be the ones undertaking that. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the standard length of time that an RCMP officer stays in the community is usually about two to three years.
Can the Minister tell us how long a commanding officer of Gdivision remains in their position, and what is the criteria for hiring a commanding officer? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The answer to the question 3A is five years. And the answer to question 3B is about two pages long, so I will share that by email with the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Thebacha.
Mr. Speaker, I strongly believe it is time that the NWT review its police service agreement with the RCMP. The RCMP are overpaid, underworked, and need greater accountability, transparency, and oversight on their conduct.
Does the Minister have the authority and the will to review the terms and conditions of the existing Territorial Police Service Agreement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Territorial Police Services Agreement is a 20year agreement, and it goes until the year 2032. It is collectively managed by all provinces and territories. So there wouldn't be much utility in myself sitting down and reviewing this 80page document. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
