Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Mr. Speaker, this time last year when I spoke to the Minister about rehabilitation services, including speech language pathology, the Minister advised that health recently organized the delivery of speech services to focus on children from birth to five years of age. How has this change impacted service delivery in the last year, and how has it changed wait times for speech language pathology. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for that question. So last year we did reorganize services on the basis that the service provided within the schools is advisory and not therapy. The service provided within the clinics is therapy. And we prioritize the youngest children for that therapy so that they have the best success when they do begin school. Having said that, we have had and continue to have significant staff vacancies in both the inschool and the occupational therapy services. And so as a result, they were reduced for this school year. In school, consultative services will be maintained for students with priority needs, and those are primarily students under five years of age and students with complex needs. So we've added a number of new positions in the Delta and at Stanton with the hope of not only the hope but the intention of reducing the average wait time of what we're going for is reduction of an average wait to less than two months. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister mentioned that the current service model focuses on primarily on children that are birth to five years of age. And we know that typically at about age six children age out of the system, and the model that sorry. They switch to a consultation model at age six. So given the impacts of COVID19, is Health and Social Services looking to increase or remove this ageout limit to increase access to services in our community schools and that includes in Yellowknife here. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we're not looking at making that change.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, given that there is a national shortage of speech language pathologists, is health working with ECE to create a hybrid model of partnerships, resident speech language pathologists, and communitybased paraprofessionals to provide the much needed ontheground support in our community schools. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as the Member knows, NTHSSA and the department do work collaboratively with ECE in this area. And in the next fiscal year, the department is preparing for a review specifically of the speech language pathology services to understand the current service gaps and identify opportunities to improve services. And that work will include NTHSSA, Hay River Health and Social Services Authority, the Tlicho Community Services Agency, and ECE. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, last year I asked that the wait times for rehabilitative services like OT, PT, and speech be publicly reported. The Minister shared an interest in advocating for greater transparency of wait times. So can the Minister share any updates on if and when this type of reporting will be available in real time like an online dashboard. Thank you.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we do have a highlevel service dashboard that is available online, but it doesn't drill into the level that the Member is asking for. And so I will follow up with her to give her specific times for Inuvik, Stanton, and Fort Smith. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's quite clear that the scope of practice of our pharmacists is falling well behind the rest of Canada. And whether that be for emergency prescriptions, prescriptions for minor ailments, adapting in managing prescriptions, ordering lab tests, there is all sorts of things that pharmacists can do in the rest of Canada that they can't do here. So my question for the Minister of health is will we expand the scope of practice for our pharmacists? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are aware that the practice of pharmacy has expanded since our Pharmacy Act had a last substantial overhaul and that the pharmacists are able to deliver a greater scope of practice than they have historically and that that includes administering specific medications as well as prescribing them, which would be a huge help as things stand now. So we are planning to draft regulations to bring pharmacists into the Health and Social Services Professions Act and to do that work early in the life of the next Assembly. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Monfwi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as a method to reduce arrears, can the Minister commit to establishing a periodic verification of income options for tenants. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister responsible for Housing NWT.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't I would like to follow up with the Member as well. Yes, I would like to follow up with the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. What local housing organization staff training is required on culturally respectful communication and developing relationship with Indigenous people. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question. And my apologies that I just requested to follow up with the Member because I didn't I just needed the question to be clarified. But I'll follow up with her separately. Thank you.
Right now we are going through a policy review right throughout housing. We've got 41 policy reviews that are currently happening. Cultural sensitivity is something that will be that will be included in the training for the local housing authorities as well. During this time that I've had the portfolio, I've also recognized language barriers were also an issue. So that will also be addressed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. According to the 2021 Northwest Territories Housing Corporation Annual Report, rent arrears were forgiven in Behchoko and Whati. Why were no arrears forgiven in Wekweeti and for Gameti. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you for the Member for asking the question as well too because we do go through a lengthy process when we're looking at forgiving accounts. They usually would have to do with very extreme circumstances and situations. I can follow up with the Member as well too for just a further description on how that process works. We also have to abide by and report to the department of Finance and to this government as well too. There is a lengthy process for us to be looking at those accounts. Some of them are denied, and some of them are approved. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Monfwi.
Mr. Speaker, majority of the people majority of the Indigenous people are living in public units; therefore, it is important for housing employees to be Indigenous. I want to ask the Minister what are they doing to build the capacity. What is the Housing NWT doing to build their capacity? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And also I just want to comment too that, you know, the numbers that we do have for Indigenous employees is quite high throughout housing. We do have the local housing authorities as well in the smaller communities. Majority of our budget is allocated to smaller communities. Also here in headquarters, I don't have the number with me on hand, but I can also provide that further information to the Member as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, these questions are for the Minister of Health. I'd like to ask the Minister who funded the two medical worker positions. Was it new funding through this government, or was it reprofiled from within existing Hay River Health and Social Services budget. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority has been able to fund these positions with internal funds at this point but that they are looking for a longer term solution to continue funding the medical social workers. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, that's my understanding that they were reprofiled and that the positions are probably only going to be for one year maybe. And I'd like to see, I guess, multiyear funding for it. So I'm hoping that, you know, the Minister will look at that, and I'd ask her if the department is actually looking at funding for those two positions so that they are ongoing and multiyear. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have information on what the department has for an ask. I haven't seen that yet. But it's very unusual for us to offer a position like that for only one year. It's also very difficult to recruit people for a job that's only for one year. So my expectation is that the department is looking at other ways to fund this on a permanent basis. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, considering that these are medical social worker positions, will they be considered, I guess, more of an outreach service allowing for the workers to actually meet clients outside of a hospital setting. Thank you.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a better description of these positions is adult social workers, adult services social workers. So my understanding is that the operational situation for the two when they are hired is to have one available at the health centre and one who is doing outreach. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell me whether these positions will be under the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority or under the NT Health and Social Services Authority? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, these are Hay River Health and Social Services Authority positions.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I almost forgot to mention happy birthday to the Minister of Housing today. My next questions are not for her. They are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
My first question, Mr. Speaker, is the GNWT's response to the OAG's education audit contained an action item of to develop greater integration of services for children and youth in the education system through expanding regional capacity. This action item is currently on hold. What concerns me is the deliverables of this action item were to explore regional approaches to expand the current capacity of territorialbased support team, identify a pilot for a demonstration site for the model to be deployed and evaluated, and collaborate with other departments to finalize a model for integrated service delivery that involves provision of services in schools. Given the importance of support services in schools, why was this action item put on hold. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There was actually a pilot ready to go in the 20212022 school year, but like many things, COVID derailed that, and there was just it was not a possibility to do this work. The department's efforts were elsewhere unfortunately. Since that time, the approach to integrated services has changed across government, and so we are looking at new ways to integrate our services in that new approach. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I find it very hard to accept that response because there are other ways of delivering these services that are creative, out of the box and that are COVID friendly. There are tons of virtual solutions that are out there that a lot of school boards actually pay for out of their own pocket over school shutdowns and during COVID so that students still had access to these very important services. But those funds came out of their own budgets. So my next question, Mr. Speaker, is during my Member's statement, I spoke about a partnership that Nunavut is using to deliver rehabilitation support services in schools both in person and virtually. So is ECE considering a similar hybrid model. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, you know, the Member is correct that the school boards have paid for some of those services, and that is with the funding that comes from the department of Education, Culture and Employment under the heading of inclusive schooling, and those funds are restricted for the types of things that the Member is talking about. So we are providing the funds, and we're letting the school boards determine how they use those funds.
And so there are those types of partnerships, but they're not at the territorial level. They are at the school board level. That being said, I think that in the long term, we need to evaluate how we provide services. The Education Act modernization will address a lot of that, will determine the different roles of the different entities. So that work is it's a work in progress, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the Minister identifying that it is a work in progress and that ECE is still working on this. And I also appreciate the Minister of Health referencing that they are currently working on this with other departments, including the department of education. I think it's really important, and we can't still find ourselves in another decade simply looking at the fact that there's vacancies and saying, well, we just don't have enough speech language pathologist, so we just have to make do. We're going to have to look at other creative solutions like these hybrid models, like paraprofessionals in communities and so forth. And so I guess my next question: Looking at the Nunavut model, how it was facilitated through their department of education, not through their Department of Health and Social Services, where the focus is a hundred percent on inschool services, not on services especially where we have an aging population who also need access to speech language pathology. And so I'm wondering from the Minister of education is this a service that should be provided through Health and Social Services, or in actual fact, should speech language pathology for schoolbased children or schoolaged children be delivered in schools from the department of education. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't think there's a straightforward simple answer to that. There's a number of different things you have to factor in. Probably four minutes worth of things that you need to factor in here. So you need to look at you need to look at the capacity within the department of Education, Culture and Employment. If we are talking about ECE managing clinical staff, you know, we don't have that capacity at this point. The Member pointed out the fact that the department of health has a mandate to serve all residents, whereas ECE focuses on the schools. So there is an argument that perhaps we need to be having some we need to deliver services dedicated to students. All of that really is up for discussion right now as we redesign the government system of schools. But there are there's values to every approach. I think the bottom line is no matter who is running this right now, there aren't enough staff; there aren't enough speech language pathologists; there aren't enough people providing rehab services to provide the services we need regardless of who is administering the program. Thank you.
Merci, Monsieur le President. My question is for the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.
The Department conducted a fiveweek public engagement on a new Forest Act that concluded on December 28, 2022. No report on that work has been released to date. The summary of policy intentions document made no mention of a public registry or what information would be made publicly available. To better understand what information is currently public and the number of authorizations and decisions made under existing legislation, please provide the following:
The number of instances where decisions and authorizations have been made under the Forest Management Act for each of the last five years related to:
Section 2 appointments of a Forest Management Supervisor;
Section 4 appointments of Forest Management Officers;
Section 8 transfer of forests to Canada;
Section 9 forest management agreements;
Section 10 permits and licences;
Section 19 suspension of a permit or licence;
Section 21 written reasons for the suspension of a permit or licence;
Section 22 notices of appeal;
Section 28 ministerial decisions on appeals; and,
Section 30 enforcement orders.
The number of instances where decisions and authorizations have been made under the Forest Protection Act for each of the last five years related to:
Section 16 appointments of a forest supervisor;
Section 17 appointments of forest officers;
Section 19 directions, demands, and notices issued by the forest supervisor; and,
Section 21 permits issued.
For each of the items listed in 1 and 2, please indicate where these documents are publicly available without resort to the Access to Information and Protection and Privacy Act and where the public can access them.
An explanation of how the department intends to implement the provisions of the Open Government Policy (approved by the Executive Council January 8, 2018) as part of the new Forest Act, especially regarding openbydesign information and decisionmaking, increased transparency, and public participation in decisionmaking.
