Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll follow up with my questions on elder abuse to the Minister of Health and Social Services. According to Stats Canada, seven out of 10 crimes against elders are never reported. There are many reasons, and we’ve had those discussions previously. One suggestion that I’ve brought up in the past is a duty to report and possibly create legislation for duty to report. When you look at the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, they make a recommendation that they can have a duty to report legislation or policy but it must be coupled with a whistleblower protection act. That’s something we have.
I want to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services what steps he has taken to move forward in this duty to report, either policy or legislation.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was actually recently invited to a meeting of the NWT Network to Prevent Abuse of Older Adults held here in Yellowknife on February 10, 2015, where the NWT Seniors’ Society was providing that workshop. At that time I was again asked about possible legislation, and I have already directed the department to do some research into the duty to report but also other opportunities that may exist that will make it necessary for individuals to report abuse.
I will say that, I mean, all of us as citizens have an obligation, in my mind, to report violence when we see it, whether it’s family violence or whether it’s abuse against adults. So if you do see abuse of our seniors or elders, please report it to the RCMP so that they can get involved and help protect our citizens and our senior citizens all throughout the Northwest Territories.
I’m talking specifically about professionals. I’m glad the Minister also agrees that all residents of the North should speak up, but under a duty to report it would protect professionals who interact with the elderly and dependent adults, and with this duty to report it would have clear guidelines for action, intervention and protection, along with adding a professional capacity to investigate such reports.
In my research, I’ve noticed that both Nova Scotia and Newfoundland have an Adult Protection Act. Nova Scotia’s came into effect June 2014.
Can I ask the Minister when he directed his department to look into this? Are they reviewing these two jurisdictions who are leading right now in Canada?
The department will be looking at a number of different jurisdictions. I can’t say off the top of my head whether they’re going to look at that one, but given that they are one of the leading jurisdictions, I can say for sure that certainly after today they will be.
Part of the process here is to make sure that people are aware of elder abuse, and I think our amazing partners like the NWT Seniors’ Society is doing amazing work to create awareness. But I do have to acknowledge that there is no consistent policy currently directing staff regarding the prevention, detection and response to elder abuse here in the Northwest Territories.
In 2012-2013 the department worked really closely with the NWT Seniors’ Society to conduct a significant amount of research into national best practices, guidelines and policies for front-line workers in response to this exact topic, adult or senior abuse. As a part of the work to support this implementation of a new continuing care standard, which is going to go a long way to addressing some of this, the department and the NWT Seniors’ Society are looking to develop territorial policies and guidelines for health and social services providers and employees to respond when they suspect or witness elder abuse. Work is happening in this and we are continuing to look at other jurisdictions for additional best practices to make sure that what we put in place is effective here in the Northwest Territories. But at the same time, if you see it, report it.
The Canadian Association of Retired Persons, also known as CARP, has a comprehensive strategy to eradicate elder abuse, and one of the recommendations that they do give – and this one I thought was quite interesting – is to create an elder abuse hotline. Because we don’t have all the services and resources in the small communities especially, and I always like to refer that we have eight communities that don’t even have nurses, who are they going to speak to report this elder abuse? If we had a 1-800 hotline that could be widely known across the North with the capacity to redirect to local service agencies and sensitive to cultural and linguistic needs of some of our elders in the communities, would the Minister look at creating something along those lines, or in the current hotline that we do have, have some type of portion of it dedicated to a senior support system where they can get the help that they need?
Resolving this particular challenge here in the Northwest Territories is going to take partnership and awareness, and one of the main organizations that do incredible work in this area is the NWT Seniors’ Society. We do currently provide funding to the NWT Seniors’ Society to offer a toll-free line to seniors with a significant amount of information, including who they might be able to call if they are witnessing things like senior or elder abuse. We can certainly have a conversation with them to see if and how that can be expanded. But at the same time, if you see or happen to witness abuse of seniors, I would still strongly encourage you and all residents of the Northwest Territories to call the RCMP. We will continue to do this work. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know we do have a lot of individuals and professionals who do work with the senior population.
Has the Minister put any new financial resources or personnel resources in terms of providing support for our professionals to continue to work with our seniors’ society, with training or any kind of other clinical support, which was also a recommendation in the strategic plan put out by the Canadian Association of Retired Persons? Has the Minister put any further support into the senior division within his department? Thank you.
We had the same conversation during Committee of the Whole. There are no new dollars or additional dollars at this time. But as we can finish the continuing care standards and other documents that we’re working on, we will likely be in a position where we will have to identify areas that need funding. For ’15-16 there are no new or additional funds targeted to this particular topic. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
