Julian Morse

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll try to wave a blue page or a white page or something to gain your attention.

Yeah, on this one I wanted to follow up on a line of questioning I brought to the justice Minister when he was before us, and it was just related to programming we have in place related to addictions, social programming, things like that related to the drug and gang problem that we have. The question that I was putting to him was, you know, whether policing is the best option for this, and I would purport that it is a part of it and fully open to that. But the question for the health Minister...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I I'm going to try and come at this from a slightly different angle just so we're not belabouring the point too badly on extended health benefits. But I wanted to ask specifically about the northern market basket measure and the switch to using this as kind of a determined the ceiling under which people would be covered or would have to kind of cover some of the costs themselves, increasing on a sliding scale from there. So I'd just like to hear from the department the appropriateness of using the basket measure. I know that the NWT has its own that it's kind of...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think that what was being desired and what was being spoken to in this case is hoping that, you know, care can be provided in such a way that people could be kept at home and not necessarily we're not necessarily talking about people who need to be in a bed or, you know, being provided medical care so to speak but sometimes just kind of some social support. I'm wondering if the Minister could kind of speak to that kind of care, keeping people at home, giving people support where they are, where they need it, so that they don't have to be in the hospital or sent south...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, yeah, I would just say to the Minister I hope to see some new programming coming forward to that end to getting people connected with employment.

Mr. Speaker, on a slightly different note, section 24(v) of the income assistance regulations requires people to drain their retirement savings in order to be eligible for income assistance. Is the Minister willing to review these regulations to see if we can achieve the balance of program fairness without forcing people to compromise their longterm future? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And in keeping with the theme of the day, I have some questions on income support.

Mr. Speaker, my first question is considering removal of the productive choice and employment requirements, as we've been talking about a fair bit this afternoon already, how is the department proposing to continue work to reduce dependency on income support? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, you know, I think we've got a big budget to get through here. I'm not going to belabour this point. I do appreciate the Minister acknowledging the problem. I do want to see the department, you know, actively working on finding solutions, trying things. You know, we've talked a lot in the business plan about taking risks, breaking status quo. You know, don't be afraid to try things. And if it's not working, try something else. I can just commit to continuing to keep the pressure on as long as I'm hearing from constituents about these ongoing issues.

Mr. Chair...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I'll keep my comments relatively minimal but I just had a few things to say that I felt were -- did fall better under general comments than anywhere else. And so I just wanted to say a few things.

Aside from the need for some specific measurables, which I've been speaking to kind of over and over again when it comes to business plans and, you know, we covered with the Premier in the previous department, but I do want to see us looking and shifting towards outcome-oriented targets in any of the business plans, and I apply that to health also. But I will say that I think...

Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. My next question is on page 208 of the business plan. There's definitely a lot of comments about this in opening comments from Members. There's a plan to kind of bring forward a new territorial crime unit within the RCMP G-division to disrupt illicit drug supply. And so, yeah, my question isn't so much -- how do I put this? So I guess bottom line is what I'm asking is what evidence has the department used to inform the approach of kind of increasing policing services in response to this? And, you know, I would just note that there was some comments earlier that --...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And yeah, just in response to that I would just say, I mean, I mentioned it already, but I think something along the lines of reduced recidivism rates or success rates, let's track the outcome that we're searching for, maybe set a goal, and that can be a better target than simply stating that we're going to deliver high quality programming. I think that's kind of a baseline expectation. So that's my comments on this item. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm certainly happy to hear that from the Minister. Thank you to the Minister for the answer. I am happy to hear that the Minister and Cabinet are carefully considering the recommendations.

Mr. Speaker, is the Minister able to give us a timeline for when we can expect a response to the recommendations brought forward?