Debates of October 30, 2024 (day 35)

Thank you, Minister of Infrastructure. Final supplementary. Member from Mackenzie Delta.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Are there any indicators from recent activities, or lack of activities, where you feel the government should take back the responsibility of the infrastructure throughout the NWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a lot of the -- in fact, I would venture to say most -- the vast majority of our roads are maintained by contractors, third-party contractors, and not by -- directly by operators in the GNWT's employ. And, Mr. Speaker, yes, we can certainly always look to optimize that we are doing the best we can, so perhaps what I'll do is take that away and just have a direct conversation with the MLA to see whether or not there may be particular stretches, particular contracts, particular areas, that need another look and I'm certainly happy to have that conversation to make sure that we are serving the community. Thank you.

Minister of Infrastructure. Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Range Lake families with adopted children are struggling to get their loved ones the support and care they need once they go -- once they age into adulthood. Their disabilities and circumstances are no fault of their own and yet they are not being supported by the system. Does the Minister of Health and Social Services agree that families with adopted adult children have a right to the care they need regardless of their ability? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Member from Range Lake. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not going to specifically categorize but I think all residents, you know, have a right to the care that they need. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, knowing that, can the Minister explain why there's not a suite of services available to adult children -- or to children in social services who age into adulthood? There's no Pathfinders. There's -- it's very difficult to get information. I have constituents struggling to find answers. And when they're given, they're sent back to square one. So can the Minister find a way to make this process better and indicate if she'll make that commitment on the floor of the House? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, Mr. Speaker, within our child and family services we have extended services to the -- before I think it used to be to 18 and now it's expanded to 24. My understanding within the system, these supports are supposed to be there to assist. However, this -- like, you know, coming from the Member, this is -- I've never -- I haven't had this come up through my office before so I'm willing to work with the Member to deal with, if there's a certain specific case or a family that's not getting the services that they require, I would work with the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will confirm with the Minister, because we have raised this with her office, but I -- we'll get to the bottom of that. But, Mr. Speaker, there is a paid -- a very successful paid pilot -- or paid community caregiver pilot project in the past, but it was discontinued due to lack of funds. This is a crucial support for these adult children in this situation. Can the Minister commit to bringing it back, or at least exploring the project to see if it could be brought back, within the next fiscal year? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is another area within NTHSSA that is unfunded. It was a -- it was a pilot but it was unfunded so it added to the deficit. And so what was done with this project after review that the services could be, you know, done from within. But what I can do to commit to the Member is to going back to that information that I received and be able to respond to the Member later. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Finally, all social services has to offer support for adult children in this situation is through employment. We have excellent NGOs doing work like the disabilities council of Inclusion NWT, but you need to be employed to get the benefit. So what is the Minister -- what does the department do for adult children in the system, in care, that cannot find employment; how are they supported? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can't speak to the details of this case so I will look forward to having a further conversation with the Member and with staff within my department. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what is being done to address the issue of micromanagement and burdensome approvals processes in the public service? This question is for the Minister of the public service. Thank you.

Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would be more than happy to encourage every public servant to take the opportunity to use, whether it's the red tape reduction working group firstly, which @email -- always happy to get that in when I can. But to submit if there's a specific process that is burdensome. Obviously it's the frontline workers who know that best. If they're running into a process, running into a program, running into something internally or even outward facing that is red tape-esq, then raising it specifically to the attention of this group is really quite important.

There's -- you know, beyond that, Mr. Speaker, there's certainly a number of management courses, too, from the perspective of ensuring that managers are not micromanaging. There's a lot of management courses out there. We are rolling out new training in this area and can certainly go back and ensure that this is one of the modules that we have in there, is that we want to empower the public service and not micromanage them. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And the Minister led perfectly into my next question which was going to ask, Mr. Speaker, what are we doing to empower staff in the public service to contribute meaningfully to decision-making? So it sounds like we're on the right track, and I'd be curious to hear from the Minister what we're doing in that regard. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I do want to give another shout out, as I have on more than one occasion, that when we first put out the Restoring Balance initiative, we went to the public service and the public service responded. We had over 900 public servants respond directly with over 1800 suggestions, many of which were directly involved in the planning of how to develop and build up the main estimates within that context, a number of decisions -- or suggestions around efficiencies, department amalgamations, even fleet management came up in the course of there. So those processes and those kind of linkages shouldn't have to wait for a special initiative. It certainly would be my hope that public servants see the pathways to put those ideas forward. But, again, you know, there are opportunities, whether it's through the red tape, whether it's through town halls that I conduct periodically to put ideas like that forward, and hopefully people continue to see that. But, again, we also do need to take, you know, some responsibility within our management. Every manager should be encouraging that from their direct reports and so on and so forth up the chain so that there's always that continuous opportunity for learning as an organization. So, again, happy to ensure that when we do our development training that we are emphasizing that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I certainly like what I'm hearing from the Minister today. This is exactly the kind of thing I hope to see. I mean, it's -- it's not lost on me that despite what the Minister is saying, I'm still hearing from people, you know, about these issues so we've got work to do in some areas. I know that there's a difference between different departments and different teams, but it's an issue that I want us to be focusing on.

Mr. Speaker, a lot of what we're talking about here is the concept of flattening hierarchy in the system. I'm wondering if that's a concept the Minister's familiar with and is something that she's looking at as the Minister for the public service, what we can do within the public service to flatten out our hierarchies, empower staff, create better efficiency in the public service, and empower our staff. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have to acknowledge I have become a bit of a generalist in this job, not an expert. So I'm not going to purport to be an expert in flattening hierarchies. I certainly will commit to take that back to the Department of Finance. We -- you know, things have come up here over this last session,b looking at Indigenous hiring, looking at empowering public servants, and looking at morale. And so I've already asked that the department and I sit down and take all those under consideration as soon as session's over. I'm going to add flattening hierarchy to that list. Thank you.

Minister of Finance. Final supplementary. Oral questions. Member from Monfwi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this question is for Minister of Justice, and it's a continuation of the addiction first responder.

Mr. Speaker, we know that illicit drugs are now outpacing alcohol as a source of society's miseries. I know that some people say drug abuse is simply a personal choice. Well, that's not the case in -- that's not the case in many of the small communities where drug dealers are giving drugs to youth and even children who are tempted and treat it like a candy, you know. Our youth are vulnerable and victimized. We need to do more for them. Our young people are dying. So I just want to ask the Minister regarding this that how many overdose related calls did the RCMP respond to in the territory in the last year? Thank you.

Minister of Justice.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't have those numbers on hand so, unfortunately, I'm not able to provide that to the Member at this exact moment. Thank you.

Thank you. Do the RCMP in the NWT carry naloxone kits? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So what first response or medical training do the RCMP have?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So at minimum, they have first aid training. I'm not familiar with other types of medical training they might receive. But they're not paramedics, and I know they're often called on when anything happens. It doesn't matter what, the police are often your first call. So I want to make sure that they are not paramedics. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Justice. Final supplementary. Member from Monfwi.

Thank you. Well, they are -- in small communities, we call RCMP first, you know, which is good -- yeah, it's good to know. So, Mr. Speaker, I'm going to ask this question because there are over 900 Tlicho citizens living in Yellowknife, and we have quite a few incidents in Yellowknife related to drugs -- drug issues. We even have one young man that was killed, that was murdered in Yellowknife, and that's still unsolved. So I just want to ask the Minister, he doesn't -- I know he probably won't have the answer but I would like to have it in writing later. So what is the average ambulance response time in Yellowknife currently? Thank you.

Thank you. That probably would not be a Minister of Justice response, but if the Minister of Justice wishes to address.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think that's more of a city of Yellowknife issue. They might have those numbers. So again, unfortunately, I don't have that but I will be looking into this further and seeing what sort of stats I can dig up. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister of Justice. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have further questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services.

So there have been many attempts over the years to plan what a proper NWT health care workforce should look like. Most recently, the physician workforce plan was prepared in 2020, lays out a vision for how physicians fit into an integrated model. Now I've seen references to this plan, but I haven't read it because it's not public. So, first, to the Minister, can this workforce plan be made public? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned that there are many documents that are drafted within the health and social services as we move forward, this document was created in 2020. It was used at the time and the people in the territory may be aware that we used to have a physician-centered care model in the territory. The rest of Canada, and everybody knows -- and especially in the Northwest Territories -- we want a wholistic model for the Northwest Territories. And so, you know, whether or not this report, there are many reports within the health and social services that try to guide the work that they do.

As we move towards primary care reform, you know, like I mentioned in the previous comments is that, you know, there may be pieces out of this that have been used. As to the detail and the extent of that, I'm not prepared to be able to answer those questions here on the floor today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister tell us if she's aware whether this 2020 physician workforce plan makes any recommendations on what would be an appropriate number of patients to assign to an integrated primary care team like the ones we have now made up of physicians, nurse practitioners, and other practitioners? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as this is very operational on the framework, as the Minister I don't -- you know, that is not something that I -- that's not where my expertise are, as to just finding what is the right amount of numbers. I mean, in this House, you know, we've heard many people say everybody wants a doctor. Well, everybody does. And in Inuvik, you know, you can go there and depending on the time of the day, you may get a doctor, you may get to see the nurse practitioner, you may get to see the nurse. In the health centre, you may not even get a nurse because there is no nurse. And there's many communities that don't have that. And so where -- you know, where this report is or where we're moving with primary care reform, you know, we're moving forward, Mr. Speaker. We're moving forward to try and look at the model that we're using currently today in this health care system. We can say everybody needs 25, 30 doctors in every community, but is that realistic? Is that what we're going to be able to do? So we're trying to meet the needs of the residents of the Northwest Territories in the primary care reform model. And I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So it's important to consider how primary care access can be improved in the smaller communities outside regional centres, and my understanding is that a lot of work has been done to lay out what this model could look like, including in the physician workforce plan, such as having physicians be a territorial resource and assigning the same doctor or locum to a small community. So have steps been taken to implement this kind of model for physicians being used as a territorial resource to better serve smaller communities with primary care access? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, within the primary care reform, you know, whatever tools that they had, whether it be the physician work plan, you know, I can't speak to exactly what parts or which sections or -- that are being used. But what I'm being -- you know, being advised of is that this plan is being integrated and parts of it that meet the needs of primary care reform. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just following up on that, does the Minister have any indication -- she says steps are being taken to follow up on those ideas and models. Does the Minister have any indication as to a timeline that we're looking at for implementing this integrated primary care model in communities -- smaller communities outside Yellowknife? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Right now, as the implementation of integrated care teams, they are in Yellowknife, Fort Smith, and Fort Good Hope at this time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services.

Colleagues, our time is up for oral questions. Oral questions. Written questions. Member for Great Slave.