Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Member. I will let the Minister answer if that's correct?

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay. No, I just wanted to make sure. We look at and see the homecare. We see long-term care. When you're in a community the size of mine, you see people working in long-term care, going from house to house. They would have different jobs. They have different circles, and then they have family circles. They take precaution to go in. I get that the CPHO has put these rules in place to protect our most vulnerable elders, but on the other hand, I also think there's some mechanism in there for maybe some extra support for that so that people are able to do the things...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Within that homecare and support services, and I see that there is long-term care and supported living, the Minister has said that there is training with the college. Within the department, is there staff looking at addressing the issue with the job descriptions where a lot of Aboriginal people who are taking Aurora College are finding they are hitting a barrier when they do not have the one year of experience as to entering after they have just finished taking the personal support worker and have been working in their practicum within these facilities? Thank you, Mr...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know I have raised it in the House, and I know we have health navigators who know where, if you need an application, you go here; if you need this, you go here; and you phone them and you know that. However, a lot of our elders and a lot of people who are coming into our hospitals from the small communities, Indigenous people, even within Yellowknife facility, that's a scary facility; even for somebody coming out of Inuvik, that's a scary facility. It's a big facility. You can get lost in there. That's more of a comment.

We keep talking about how, in order to bridge this...

Thank you. In my past work and knowing that some of this information about the people who are outside the NWT are a large number from my region, I have also found that the costs of these facilities have gone up significantly over a number of years, and I'm just wondering if that is accurate and if we can get a confirmation of an average of what we pay. I know there is a large amount of different -- people are living at different levels of care. I'm just wondering if there is a breakdown of what these levels of care are and the average cost that we pay per person out-of-territory annually, or...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question was: is there dedicated staff within this funding to have that engagement in this budget with Indigenous governments, especially the ones who are saying they want to do this? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know it's not cut and dried, but if there were going to be issues with this person, we can't say where they were going to live, but if I say that this person was born to a family and their family is still in Tuktoyaktuk, for instance, then that's kind of where I'm looking at. I'm trying to find where the people have come from in the Northwest Territories. What are their roots? Where are their families from? That's one of them. I want to ask another thing, and the reason why I want to ask that is because we teach our children about equity. You've got Jordan's Principle...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My questions are regarding the line item under Child and Family Services. There is an increase of $4 million. I know that it is probably due to the increased staffing that we see, but is there any work being done in that department for collaboration with Aboriginal governments on them taking over, or assuming parts, or a planning process, to children in care, assuming that part of the department? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm sure he won't have the information that I'm going to ask for next, so I'm just going to continue to ask it. That way, I can get that commitment to have the answers. I would like to also know, out of these 114 clients, how many of those clients are from Yellowknife? How many of those clients are from regional centres? How many of those clients are from small communities? Thank you, Mr. Chair.