Mr. Speaker, the Department of Transportation is updating its Multi-Modal Transportation Strategy that will guide further development of our integrated air, road, rail and marine systems over the next 25 years. Engaging stakeholders and the public so we understand their priorities and needs has been a critical part of the process. Later this afternoon I will table the NWT Transportation Strategy 2015-2040 Stakeholder Engagement Report summarizing what the Department of Transportation heard during the initial phase of public engagement held in the fall of 2014. The strategy will be regularly reviewed going forward to ensure it is current and reflects the needs of the Northwest Territories.
The department used public meetings, online surveys, written surveys, a letter writing campaign and face-to-face interviews to gather perspectives on the transportation system. We heard from stakeholders across the NWT, including Members of this Assembly, Aboriginal leaders, community leaders, residents, businesses, industry and key stakeholder organizations from the NWT and southern Canada who conduct business in our territory.
The Stakeholder Engagement Report summarizes their input and confirms the strong supporting role that transportation infrastructure continues to play in enabling economic growth for our territory and the delivery of essential services to its residents. It is clear that Northerners and stakeholders want to see further enhancement and expansion of transportation facilities and services to meet current and future needs.
Three key themes emerged during the consultation. First, we must continue to maintain and improve our existing highways, winter roads, marine and airports to enhance the level of service and improve transportation safety. Second, we must expand the transportation system into new areas of the NWT to better connect our communities and support resource development potential. Finally, we must continue to improve the way we do business by modernizing transportation policy and regulations, by better communicating with the public to improve awareness and safety, by embracing new technology and by adapting the system to the effects of climate change.
Our next step is to prepare a draft of the Transportation Strategy based on feedback gathered through engagement and technical background reports. The department will then visit each region of the NWT again in the spring of 2015 to discuss the draft strategy with residents and stakeholders.
Mr. Speaker, Northerners recognize that safe and cost-effective transportation services are important to our communities and to the development of new economic opportunities in each region of the NWT. We look forward to further engagement with residents this spring. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Good afternoon, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday I was very pleased to hear the Minister of Health and Social Services announce in this House funding and supports to introduce on-the-land healing programs. Finally we are returning to this much needed land-based Aboriginal cultural healing environment.
In October 2014 I spoke in this House about the successful on-the-land program at Six Mile Creek outside of Fort Simpson that should serve as a territorial model for early intervention of alcohol and drug abuse amongst the youth.
A pilot program had 22 students. It was designed to build youth identity, increase physical activity and establish an Aboriginal cultural link to the land and animals. The facilitators also taught life skills, emotion management, self-control, fostering well-being, healthy relationships and a sense of identity was also learned.
This project and other pilot projects on the land from last year will certainly provide a standard as we begin to build on this. I think the most important issue is about getting back on the land and back to our roots. We live in a highly modern and stressful world. The programming supports and approved projects will give clients and participants time away from it all and concentrate on their recovery and mental health.
I did note in the Minister’s statement that there was no specific plan for the Deh Cho at this time. I urge the Minister to request his department to finalize a plan quickly so that our youth or adult clients can take advantage of a program this summer.
The Minister is aware, when he visited last fall, of the excellent facility over at Six Mile Creek up the river from Fort Simpson. There is no reason why that exact same location cannot be used. The department has by now evaluated the lessons learned from the pilot program from last year. I am certain that the recommendations will form the development of an excellent land-based healing program for our youth. I just want to say that I am supportive of building on and continuing these supports for our youth.
In closing, indeed, we need to reach out and provide this on-the-land programing throughout the whole Northwest Territories for our youth in their time of need as they will be our future, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi cho.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today we’re going to do a little bit of a theme day on mental illness. When I think of mental illness, I think of anxiety, depression, bipolar, schizophrenia and addictions.
Some come and go, some are lifelong, some will respond well to medication and some others not so well. Some result from a hereditary predisposition and some are less likely to be hereditary, but all mental illness deserves the same response as any other physical illness. To that end, I think our resources through the Department of Health and Social Services and this government are stretched very, very thin.
The statistics on the percentage of people who will struggle with some degree of mental illness in their lifetime is staggering. So as a very first starting point, we have to first abolish and banish the stigma, and we need to think through a lens of medical science and a common sense approach to responding to mental illness.
To that end, I will use myself as an example. Stress, extreme stress, can trigger bouts of depression and anxiety. When I was 26 years old, within a six-month period my husband lost his job, we had to move into an unfinished house, we had a baby, the baby turned out to be a very sick baby, and my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died. That was in a six-month period when I was 26 years old. Probably also mixed in with some post-partum depression, I hit rock bottom. After many trips to the emergency ward at the hospital, I had a choice between trying to work through it through my faith or take medication. Taking medication to me seemed counterintuitive because I always wanted to be in control, and taking medication made me think that I wasn’t going to be in control of how I felt.
I only tell this story to the end that people might look at me and think, there’s Jane Groenewegen. Now, she has never had a worry in this world. I mean, they look at me and say, you’ve been married for 38 years, you have had a couple of successes, you’ve been in politics for 20 years, there’s a person who’s got it all together. Mr. Speaker, that’s not how we need to look at mental illness. We need to understand that these incidents and stints of mental illness will occur. Some will last an entire lifetime. Some people will get help. That is where we, the government, need to think outside the box.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement. Thank you.
---Unanimous consent granted
My colleagues are telling me to slow down. Obviously this is something that I’m very passionate about, as you can tell.
We need to think outside of the box. As I said, when I found myself in that situation, the only thing that saved me in a small, northern town was a lady that I knew that stayed home all day and baked and watched soap operas. Now, she didn’t talk a lot and she wasn’t a lot of help to me, but she was there. Because I was afraid to go in. I was afraid to stay home. I didn’t know where to go. My husband had to go to work because he had a job. These are the kinds of pressures that people are faced with.
So when I say “think outside the box,” I think we need to do more with the idea of having people in all of our communities who are there to be a support with people who are struggling. People who can receive training on helping people and sometimes just to be there and help people and support people through these things. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a territory, we struggle with mental illness every day, and although we see some great initiatives nationally on working together to create a stigma-free Canada, we are still failing.
While everyone in this room struggles to improve the quality of care while reducing the costs of our health care system, we seem to be missing the point. That is, the overwhelming evidence that access to mental health care in the NWT is poor.
Nationally, one in five people with depression get appropriate treatment, and we know this number is much higher in the North. Shockingly, nationally one in three patients discharged from a psychiatric department see a primary care physician or psychiatrist within a month. We don’t track this type of performance measure in the NWT, but we all know what our numbers would look like.
Compare this to such post-disease follow-ups like heart failure or cancer at close to 100 percent, it shows even nationally we are doing things poorly. But the question is: Why?
The answer is complicated. Mental illness, by all accounts, is one of the biggest predictors of inequality to access of care in this country. Basically, once pegged with a mental disorder, you are far less likely to get the care you need. What’s bad for business and costly to the taxpayer is the price we pay for psychiatric illnesses ending up back into the hospital, when it’s far less cost than cost due to proper follow-up and working wisely with the patient. Unfortunately, the long-awaited NWT Mental Health Act is, by all accounts, another continued barrier for better management of outcomes for those suffering, and sadly, we continue to wait for this legislation.
Until such time as we can master the same diagnostic work-up, measured care and proper treatment for conditions like cancer or heart failure and heart disease, mental illness patients will be burdened with a system of inequality who lack the continuous and level care of population-based need.
We as legislators must understand this clear sense of need so we can be expected to align existing resources with this present demand. People are no longer willing to suffer in silence, and we can no longer ignore the burden of mental illness. I call on my colleagues collectively to support a system that is ready, responsive and able to meet the needs of those suffering in our communities, in all our communities. I know this is a daunting task before this House, but let us be remembered for our actions and, again, not just our words. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a big bone to pick with the Department of Health and Social Services. The Northwest Territories has the largest per capita population of residential school survivors in the country, and the distressed voices of residential school survivors are constantly ringing in my ears, but the department gives one excuse after another. It says it doesn’t have enough money for a full continuum of mental health and addictions services. Things like one-on-one therapy, made-in-the-North residential treatment and after-care for recovering addicts.
It’s time for a reality check. No more excuses. On one hand the government says there’s no money, there’s no money. Yet, it finds money for a delegation to fly to China or send down to Ottawa and for expensive infrastructure projects. When there’s extra money resulting from low uptake on government programs, that extra money goes into the government’s other projects.
When children are repeatedly beaten and belittled – and let’s be honest, that happened to almost everyone who attended the residential schools in the Northwest Territories – why wouldn’t they repeat that behavior when they enter into adult society? The medical community tells us that there’s a clear link between trauma and addiction. Alcohol and drugs numb the pain. Healing from trauma isn’t a quick fix. It involves nothing short of remaking yourself, sometimes even remaking the entire family. That, in turn, requires intensive therapeutic support.
I’m tired of excuses. I think this government does have the money. What it actually lacks is an unwavering political support to the residential school survivors.
I call on this Department of Health and Social Services to do more for the residential school survivors and their families in the North. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I too will talk about mental illness. Obviously, some Members have already spoken on that.
Nationally, we have Clara Hughes who did a bike ride to bring light to this issue. Even famous people like Howie Mandel have come out with some of their issues. One of the things he said was… If I told you, Mr. Speaker, this afternoon that I had to go to a dentist, you would probably not blink an eye about that and allow me to do that, but if I had to tell you that I had to go see my psychologist or psychiatrist or my counsellor, you may have a different situation.
This is something we need to work on strongly, especially when we know that some of the statistics in the North are rising. We’ve had the opportunity in Hay River to have a revamp of our mental health. We have new counsellors. We have a better system. We have a couple of addiction wellness counsellors who are helping us out. But as we stir the pot, as we bring up some of these issues to people, there’s more and more demand, and now we’re experiencing that in some of the communities and some of those people that we’ve brought up.
We’ve had opportunities to have a couple of group sessions and stuff like that, but now the demand is so great on those counsellors and that organization, we have to look at putting more money into this organization to deal with mental illness throughout the Northwest Territories.
I know it’s a daunting task, especially with the pressures we have financially, but it’s something we have to continue to work at, to strive at, to get more counsellors, to get more help for the people that are needing it in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we heard yesterday during opening comments for the Health and Social Services department and from speakers already today, the NWT lacks adequate mental health services, and we’re not alone. Across Canada, every jurisdiction faces the same problem.
Those who suffer from mental illness are found in all parts of our society. Some are affected in a minor way, others are severely debilitated, and we struggle with how to treat every one of them.
Sufferers of mental illness are often hidden, but many we also see every day. Perhaps the most visible are the homeless. Statistics show that about 67 percent of the homeless experience mental illness at some point in their life. Many become chronically homeless because of it. But a new concept, a new program has been showing success in helping homeless people.
Traditionally we treat the illness first. We get them into some kind of a program, for instance, and then we look at other factors in their lives which impact how they live. But the Housing First program houses people first and then provides all-encompassing, wraparound services that they need to get well. It looks beyond the illness and sees the person as a whole.
The premise of the program is that the road to recovery from mental illness is more likely to begin when individuals are provided with a home. This program has been piloted in Canada for five years in at least five major cities with positive results. Compared to traditional treatment practises, clients in the Housing First program remain housed – that is not on the streets – twice as often as those in regular treatment, 67 percent versus 31 percent.
The other positive: financial savings. For the 10 percent of homeless, who have the highest needs and use the most health services most often, the analysis shows that a $10 investment in Housing First saves an average of almost $22.
I’m really pleased that the City of Yellowknife, with the assistance of the GNWT and the federal government, will be instituting the Housing First program in the very near future. Given the success in other Canadian cities, I expect we will experience fewer homeless people and a significant number of mental illness sufferers with a new lease on life: improved mental health, improved physical health, employment and independence.
There are three key principles of the recovery approach in mental health. They are hope, self-determination and responsibility. The Housing First program gives clients all of those and a path to a better life.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. On an ill-fated day in 2009, Allisdair Leishman was brought by ambulance to the emergency ward at Stanton Hospital. He was suffering from hypothermia and experiencing a psychiatric episode. Left unattended, the distressed patient made his way into the unlocked kitchen, got a hold of a knife and managed to severely injure himself. Allisdair was left with permanent physical and cognitive impairments.
One momentary breach of care in security forever altered Allisdair’s life and the lives of his family members. Allisdair lost his ability to support himself and provide child support for his young daughter. Within a short time the bank foreclosed on Allisdair’s home. Since the incident, Allisdair’s mother, Margaret, has been carrying the lion’s share of grief and burden.
The Department of Health and Social Services never offered an apology or formal compensation. Margaret has had to find her own financial means to travel back and forth to visit and care for her son who lives at Stanton’s extended care unit. Despite the fact that a specialist in Edmonton has prescribed a range of rehabilitative services, Allisdair’s care at Stanton Hospital is very limited. Margaret has been left to scrutinize the situation and plead for improvements. The family has written to the department, stating that Allisdair’s health issues are not being adequately dealt with and that the lack of care amounts to neglect. The department has not responded.
Understandably, the family is not satisfied and wonders if the department has something to hide. I have to admit, my thoughts run in that direction too.
Allisdair’s family wants to see him living with more dignity and comfort and provided with a full range of rehabilitation services. Today I will call on the department to respond to these requests.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When we talk about mental health, there are so many branches and so many different avenues we can take in addressing and talking about this very, very harmful disease. What I want to talk about today is some of the work that’s been done with the Mental Health Commission of Canada.
Last year, November 25th, the Mental Health Commission of Canada released a comprehensive implementation guide to help Canadian employers fully adopt the national standard of Canada for psychological health and safety in the workplace, something that is needed. This implementation guide is available on their website at no cost.
I know that while we must take primary responsibility for our health and well-being, the workplace can play a significant role in our ability to manage both our physical and our psychological health. That’s why this is very important. Workplace mental health has a $51 billion economic impact on businesses across Canada. About 30 percent of disability claims and 70 percent of disability costs are all attributed to mental health problems and illnesses.
Mental health in the workplace is very important. We see that in our communities. We also hear it from our constituents who are dealing with either management, system flaws, issues that we’re dealing with. I think with this fiscal restraint policy that we had to implement this year, that might have caused some of the mental health issues in some of the workplaces as well.
Just last month, on January 22nd, the Mental Health Commission of Canada also released another document, Informing the Future: Mental Health Indicators for Canada. This is the first ever national level set of indicators that identifies and reports on the mental health of Canadians.
This disease, mental illness, touches all parts of the health system and on all parts of society, and no one organization or department, for that matter, can tackle this complex issue alone. We’ve got to find a way where we can work together with our NGOs, with organizations such as the Mental Health Commission of Canada and Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse to tackle this issue to make sure that we have the right programs and services for those that need it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are many forms of mental illness. We have anxiety disorders, eating disorders, craving, mental illness in the workplace, obsessive-compulsive disorder, children, youth and depression, and that’s what I want to touch on today.
While we may think of low mood or other challenges as adult problems, they can affect people of any age. Children and teens can experience mental illnesses like depression.
Sometimes it can be difficult for adults to understand how difficult children’s problems can be because we look at their problems through our eyes as adults. The pressures of growing up can be very hard for some children. It’s important that we remind ourselves that while their problems may seem unimportant to us, they can be overwhelming to young people.
It’s important to take depression in young people seriously. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In any given year, one in five Canadians experience mental health problems. The cost to the economy, of course, is enormous at $50 billion. On average, one in three adults and one in four children or youth report that they have only sought help or assistance through treatment programs.
Four thousand Canadians die every year as a result of suicide. These are terrible statistics, but I’m going to go on. Up to 70 percent of adults living with mental health problems report the symptoms started during childhood. In 2010, mental health conditions were responsible for 47 percent of all approved disabilities claims in the federal service, almost doubling that average since 20 years prior. Mental health problems and illnesses account for more than $6 billion in lost productivity due to the absenteeism. Interestingly enough, the vast majority of people living with mental health illness problems are not involved with the criminal justice system. However, in fact, they are more likely to be victims of violence by their perpetrators.
Estimates suggest that the rate of serious mental health problems among federal offenders, upon admission, have increased by 60 to 70 percent since 1997. Adults with severe mental health problems and illnesses die up to 25 years earlier.
Depending on which study is cited, between 25 and 74 percent of people who are homeless in Canada have reported that they have mental health problems. Among those with the most severe and complex mental health problems, unemployment is estimated to be 70 to 90 percent of the burden that they carry. One study reported that 27 percent of caregivers lost income caring for a family member that they care so dearly about.
About 20 percent of the Canadian population do not use the mother tongue of English or French. Twelve percent of those language speakers use another language other than English or French in their home. Mr. Speaker, I’m going to try in French…
[Translation] Forty-seven percent of francophones who live outside of Quebec have difficulty finding health care, usually because of the lack of French-speaking health professionals. [Translation ends]
Could you only imagine how difficult it is to seek help in the Northwest Territories if you only speak one of the nine other languages other than English or French?
At this particular time, I’ll seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
Depending if you’re a girl, woman, man or boy, girls will attempt suicide at higher rates; men and boys will die of suicide more often. First Nations youth die by suicide five or six times more often than their non-Aboriginal counterparts.
To bring this to a close, Canada only spends about seven cents out of every public health care dollar on mental health care, far below the 10 to 11 percent countries like New Zealand the UK spend.
In closing, mental illness is certainly the elephant in the room that we can all see that no one seems to want to talk about or confront. I’ll finish my statement by pointing out that the NWT has a 24-hour Helpline at 1-800-661-0844. We know many families struggle with this. Many parents struggle with this to take care of their loved ones. Mr. Speaker, we must do more. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, through you and with your assistance here, I’d like to point out in the gallery someone I’ve worked with earlier in 2014, Mr. Kevin Hynes who is the president of the Yellowknife Firefighters Association, here for Bill 45. Thank you.
I’d like to welcome everybody here in the public gallery. Thank you for taking in our proceedings today.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe we need a made-in-the-North solution to the issue of supporting the residential school survivors that will provide intensive support for all these survivors.
I want to ask the Minister, will the Minister investigate the feasibility of a pan-territorial facility for treating addictions and mental health issues of residential school survivors? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I did have some initial conversations with the Minister of Health and Social Services for Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. They have since stopped being the Ministers of Health and Social Services, so I will follow up with the new Ministers to see if there’s any interest in a pan-territorial approach. Thank you.
That’s certainly good news on this side of the House here. I look forward to the Minister’s follow-up.
Lately I’ve been trying to address the problems experienced by the residential school survivors who have been convicted of a violent or sexual crime and who have been turned away from addictions treatment programs. These men are falling between the cracks.
As an alternative, will the Minister commit to funding intensive individual therapy sessions for these men, or looking at a mobile treatment program?
We do provide a continuum of care and supports for individuals who are suffering from addictions here in the Northwest Territories, from community counsellors, we’re trying to extend the Matrix program, which is an outpatient treatment program that can be delivered in different communities throughout the Northwest Territories which these individuals would have access to.
Our difficulty has been that a number of the facilities out there that provide residential treatment have policy and procedures about not allowing individuals with certain criminal records into co-ed facilities. So, I will work with the Member and we will try to articulate the programs that are available for these individuals today, and when there are specific cases we will certainly work with the individuals to meet their needs. Thank you.
My question for the Minister of Health, I’ve been told that one of the weaknesses of the Nats'ejee K'eh facility was its failure to fully make use of the free counselling offered by Health Canada to residential school survivors. Can the Minister comment on this claim?
That claim has never been made to me. I’d certainly be interested in where it came from and we could certainly look into the details, but that is not something that has been articulated to me in the past.
Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the Minister’s Forum on Addictions, in the recommendations…There are over 60 recommendations, 67 to be exact, the recommendations are to help with the interagency of our small communities.
I want to ask the Minister, can he commit to give direction to the health workers under his authority to work with the other agencies, such as the police, the counsellors, to look at how they deal with mental health patients in the community so that they do not fall through the cracks when they need help from a small community perspective?
