Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Health and Social Services. I spoke in my statement about the lack of facilities for adult disabled children who need to move out of their parents’ home and into assisted living or independent living. The impact of the situation on families is huge when they have no space that they can move into. For this family of constituents of mine, this is their home community. Yellowknife is where they’ve been for some 30-plus years. They want to stay in their community. They want their child to be able to stay in the community that is their home. They live and work here. If their child happens to go someplace else, they really don’t have an option to move because they are living and working here.
I would like to ask the Minister a couple of questions in regards to facilities or the lack thereof. Does the Minister or will the Minister acknowledge that there is a space problem for adult disabled children needing assisted living? What is the responsibility of the government to provide assisted living for our vulnerable peoples?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think we should not forget that this Assembly and this government is the first to invest into a built-for and custom-designed assisted living facility for persons with disabilities. In this year’s budget we’re spending $2.5 million for a complex in Hay River. That’s a territorial facility and that was one of the largest capital investments that we had on the books for the Department of Health and Social Services.
We also spent a sizeable budget in Yellowknife and other areas, to help families with persons with disabilities. I do appreciate that, as is the case with many things in Health and Social Services, the demand exceeds the supply, but I do take a bit of exception when the Member says the department is not doing anything. We have gone further than I’ve seen in 10 years in this area.
Thanks to the Minister. I have to say that I don’t believe those were my words, but that may have been how they were interpreted.
I do commend the government for the work that has been done to provide assisted living facilities, but there is an evident need, particularly in the city of Yellowknife where about 50 percent of our population lives. We do have an expanding population of adult disabled children who need supervision and need assisted living. I’d like to ask the Minister what the department’s plans are for the future. How will the department accommodate those adult disabled children who need assisted living in Yellowknife? How will that happen in five years from now or, actually, how about next year? Thank you.
Two points to that, one is that Yellowknife has more assisted living beds than any community in the Territories. The second is that, Mr. Speaker, the Member knows that we do our budgets together. It’s not the department alone that sets out this budget.
I agree with the Member that this is an issue that we need to plan for. That’s one of the reasons why the department has worked to finish the long-term care facilities plan for the next 20 years, which has not been done before. The long-term care unit is not just for seniors, it’s for anybody who needs long-term care. I agree with the Member, this is an issue for every jurisdiction in Canada. Every government has to do future planning. This government and this department have done enormous work in the last year and we need to work together on that. She sits on the Standing Committee on Social Programs, and we need to plan. It’s a huge issue, but we have gone quite a length in the last two budget cycles to move this ahead. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. I have to say I agree we have more spaces here in Yellowknife than any other community, but we happen to have more people in Yellowknife than we do in any other community. So, you know, I think that probably goes hand in hand.
The Minister says that we need to plan. Absolutely, I agree, we need a plan, and this is my point. I would like to know from the Minister, I did ask what that plan is. We have an increasing number of adult disabled children who are going to need accommodation. I’d like to ask the Minister when we can expect to see a plan or when can we expect to begin working on a plan, since she says that she’s working with the committee. Thank you.
We are working on that right now. That’s what a capital budget review is. The long-term care facilities review has done work on that. It talks about how many bed spaces we need for long-term care territory-wide. That’s a 20-year plan reviewable every five years.
Mr. Speaker, we have to recognize that not everybody in the Territories gets to stay exactly where they want to be. We would like to have people stay in their communities as much as possible, but the assisted living facility in Hay River was built for everybody in the Territories. We do have services in Yellowknife, but whenever there is a resident in the Territories who needs assisted living or a facility living arrangement, they go through the Territorial Admissions Committee and we place them as best as we can to places that are available. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Your final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker I need to ask the Minister, if there is a plan in the works, then that plan presumably has some detail in it. I’d like to know what the detail is in that plan relative to beds. When can the Minister tell me that there will be more beds for assisted living adult children needing assisted living in Yellowknife? When can I expect to see more beds? Thank you.
We are a territorial government, a territorial Assembly. We do territorial planning and we are reviewing the capital budget for the Department of Health this afternoon. Mr. Speaker, it’s all before us. For any additional spaces, we put them in as the funding becomes available. We have done a lot of work in building through planning studies and prototype designs, so that we can move these projects on the books as quickly as possible.
With respect to Yellowknife, there are ways to support these families that are not based out of a facility. Specific to the Member’s constituent, her situation is being addressed separately, not separately but within the system, as expeditiously as possible. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
