Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions today for the Minister responsible for Persons with Disabilities. Last year at some time, I made a Member’s statement on reports that this government does, and sometimes doesn’t take any to them, and sometimes these reports get shelved. Looking at the reports dealing with persons with disabilities, I’ve come across two here on the website. One is the NWT Action Plan for Persons with Disabilities, even though it deals with so many different areas: disabilities, education, employment, income, disabilities, sports, housing. I could each ask each one of the departments questions on it, but since we have a Minister responsible for Persons with Disabilities, I’d like to ask him for an update on where this NWT Action Plan for Persons with Disabilities is currently sitting and how those action items have been addressed to date, if he has an update on that.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Health, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The 2007 NWT Action Plan for Persons with Disabilities had almost 90 recommendations. Of those recommendations, 41 of those recommendations were completed and 38 of those recommendations are ongoing. Nine of those recommendations were considered incomplete for one reason or another.
I know there were a lot of recommendations in the report. We’re five years into a government for a document that was tabled in the House in 2008. That’s five years of action and work that could have been done to addressing some of these recommendations. We’re less than half completed, still a lot that are ongoing, and some that haven’t even been addressed.
Can the Minister please go into detail on why some of these haven’t been addressed and why we’re not even getting half of these recommendations complete? Is it lack of resources? Is it lack of funding into these organizations? Because as we stated earlier this week, we do have a lot of NGOs in Inuvik, in Hay River that do this job on behalf of government but we’re not funding, and that can take us back into a whole other discussion on finances.
Can he tell us, clarify why we’re not addressing more than at least half of the recommendations being complete today?
The items that are incomplete are incomplete for various reasons. Like I indicated, some of funding, definitely. Some have just not been signed off by the groups that are working on that particular action item, and some were considered not applicable. Of the 88 recommendations, nine of those fell into that category.
The 38 recommendations that are ongoing are being actioned, but they are in the nature where they weren’t action plans that could have a completion date. Essentially they are action items that would continue on to support the persons with disabilities. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister made a comment there that some of these recommendations were not applicable. How can this government have the NWT Action Plan for Persons with Disabilities when we have barely even discussed or even brought it up in the House, and have recommendations on the government document that is on the website, have recommendations that are not applicable to NWT residents, NWT residents that are living with disabilities when we try to talk about dignity, respect for all individuals of the NWT? How can he make the statement such as some of these not being applicable? Can he clarify that statement into detail? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the Member is correct; the action plan is put together by government, but a lot of the actions are carried out by NGOs that we fund. I have a document here. Yesterday I spoke about the 50 or so NGOs that the Department of Health and Social Services support directly under the disabilities that I think may have perhaps six different organizations that we support within the funding of those NGOs. Our funding some of the action plans were put out. I think there are only a couple of them that are considered to be something that they were not going to carry out. I can go back to the organizations and discuss further why some of these action plans would not be carried out. That would just provide us with information as I have it here.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Mr. Speaker, with the theme of Disabilities Awareness Week creating accessible and welcome communities for all people, we only have a few communities that have accessible infrastructure. What is the Minister and his department doing to actually create accessible and welcoming communities within our 33 communities in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I recognize that accessibility, we are talking about physical accessibility into buildings or into infrastructure at the community level. That is a major issue. Only a couple of communities have physical accessibility for persons with disabilities. We know of individuals that cannot return to their home communities because they happen to be in a wheelchair and so on. We recognize that. It is a major project. I think that we would have to continue our work with the NWT Council for Persons with Disabilities. We would have to work with those guys in order to maybe try to create some more accessibility in public buildings all over our communities, but it would be quite a major task. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
