I move that this committee now concludes consideration of the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation financial summary information and all related information items in Tabled Document 22-17(5), Northwest Territories Main Estimates, 2014-15. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. We’ll just take a minute and circulate this motion. The motion is in order.
Question.
Question has been called. The motion is carried.
---Carried
I’d like to thank the Minister today and our witnesses, Mr. Stewart and Mr. Anderson, for joining us. Sergeant-at-Arms, if you could please escort the witnesses out of the Chamber.
Thank you, committee. Just for the record, with this motion we have concluded consideration of Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on with our agenda, we have Health and Social Services. With that, we will go to the Minister of Health and Social Services for opening comments. Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you for this opportunity to appear before Committee of the Whole to present the Department of Health and Social Services’ main estimates. The proposed operating budget for 2014-2015 is $391.929 million, which represents an 8 percent increase from the current fiscal year.
This budget includes $19.1 million in forced growth and $16.5 million in key initiatives. The initiatives increase our investment in a number of areas that target priorities identified by the 17th Legislative Assembly.
Our system continues to face many challenges, including fiscal sustainability, an aging population, changing patterns of chronic disease and the need to keep up with emerging technology. Investments in this budget will help to address these challenges and move us towards our goal of better health, better care and a better future for NWT residents.
Sustainability of the health and social services system is an ongoing concern. We face constant increases in cost and demand for services to meet the needs of our clients and patients. Members of this Assembly have raised concerns about deficits in health and social services authorities. This budget includes $15 million in forced growth that will help to address ongoing pressures in the system, including providing our authorities with appropriate funding for standby and callback pay. Three point two million will address a base deficiency in Stanton Territorial Hospital’s medical travel budget. Five point two million has been added to the budget to address increased costs of children and adults accessing residential placements outside of the NWT.
Funding to support our work in shared services and innovation will also promote sustainability in our system as we move towards achieving efficiencies by sharing expertise and resources among health and social services authorities. One million three hundred thousand dollars in funding to bring Stanton Territorial Health Authority and the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority will help lay the foundation for moving all authorities to a common financial system as well as being an essential stepping stone towards implementing a territorial electronic medical record.
We know we can deliver better care by improving access to services to our residents. The budget includes funding to roll out the Med-Response system. Beginning later this year, this program will provide regional and community health workers with immediate access to physician support, using phone and telehealth technology. This will ensure an immediate response to community medical emergencies, including coordination of medevacs. The budget also includes funding to expand midwifery programming in the NWT.
But we can’t focus only on how we deal with people when they need our services. To achieve better health for our population, we need to invest in prevention and promotion. This budget includes funding to improve the overall health and well-being of our people through three major initiatives focusing on anti-poverty, early childhood development, and mental health and addictions.
The budget includes $500,000 in new funding to support communities, Aboriginal governments and non-government organizations in tackling poverty in our communities. It includes $1.5 million to implement our Early Childhood Development Action Plan. We absolutely agree that focusing on healthy child development in the zero to three age group remains a top priority and that we must implement and strengthen a number of programs to support this age group. We also realize that those in greatest need are the families most at risk. They are often the ones who do not take advantage of facility-based programs, whether they are offered in a health centre, a child and family resource centre or a daycare program. If we are going to truly make a difference, we need to find ways to improve our ability to reach the parents and caregivers who are in greatest need of support; including pregnant moms, and parents and caregivers suffering from addictions issues.
Lastly, we continue to invest in Mental Health and Addictions. We continue to make progress on our action plan, including offering a broad continuum of treatment services to meet as many unique treatment needs as possible. We are exploring new options for addictions treatment in the NWT using existing infrastructure, from community-based services to specialized residential addiction treatment options. We have been working with an established treatment centre to pilot a mobile addictions treatment option, and are expanding the availability of day programs and after-care. We are exploring options for re-establishing residential addictions treatment in the Northwest Territories.
A key recommendation of the Minister’s Forum on Addictions and Community Wellness was that the government support a range of on-the-land programs as part of the continuum of addictions programs. I am pleased that the budget includes $900,000 in new funding which will position us to respond to this recommendation, working in partnership with Aboriginal governments and communities.
This government has identified a number of priorities for this department. I plan to keep Members updated as much as possible as we roll out these new initiatives.
This concludes my opening remarks. I am happy to answer any questions.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that we report progress.
---Carried
