Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will have questions for the Minister responsible for Seniors, Mr. Abernethy. As I indicated in my statement, seniors are a valuable asset in the Northwest Territories and we know there is an expanding group of people. What is the Government of the Northwest Territories doing to improve the seniors’ quality of life in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister responsible for Seniors, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not sure there are enough minutes on the clock to outline all the things the Department of Health and Social Services in addition to the Housing Corp, Education, Culture and Employment and all the other departments are doing to support seniors. But I will go into a few of the items that the department is undertaking.
We do have Our Elders, Our Communities, which is a framework for action on improving the results for seniors in the Northwest Territories. Our Elders, Our Communities outlines priority areas that will be used to guide future programming and design for older adults to assist them to remain in their communities for as long as possible. Some of the priority areas that we’re working on include healthy and active aging, home and community care services, integrated and coordinated services across the continuum, caregiver supports, elder-responsive communities, accessible and current information as well as some sustainable factors, Mr. Speaker. I can go on and on but I’ll defer to the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I could have asked this question to several Ministers, as the Minister indicated, but my question to the Minister responsible for Seniors is: What is the connection? Is there a committee that gets all the departments together that are linking seniors together that have seniors issues, whether it’s the Department of Finance for taxation, whether it’s Health, whether it’s MACA, whether it’s Housing? Is there a group of people who get together and discuss seniors specifically? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
A number of requests do come to me from organizations like the NWT Seniors’ Society, which I absolutely share with the individual Ministers responsible. But we also have the Ministers’ Social Envelope Committee of Cabinet where there’s an opportunity for us to discuss issues across multiple departments. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
My question is about that committee. Does that committee get together on a regular basis to talk about seniors along with the Minister responsible for Seniors, to actually just sit down and discuss, or do they come up just on specific topics? Does this group get together regularly regarding seniors? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The Social Envelope Committee of Cabinet meets on a frequent but not scheduled basis and we talk about topics that have come up either in the House or directly from other individuals from outside of the government itself, and we’re topic based. We have had issues or topics specific to seniors but we don’t have a seniors standing agenda item.
As the Minister responsible for Seniors, like I said, I do have a lot of different groups, different seniors’ societies coming to me on a regular basis with issues that are cross-departmental and I do bring those forward to the respective departments and work with them to get responses back to the individuals who are looking for answers.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s hard to get all of the questions in because there are a lot of issues that we deal with as Regular Members here on this side. I guess my question would be concerning funding.
Has the department or the Minister looked at the funding that we give to seniors, whether it’s through senior groups, whether it’s through fuel subsides? Are we looking at expanding funding that we give to seniors?
When you add all the programs together, whether it’s housing or education or health and social services, there is significant money going into this particular area. I will commit to getting some more quantified, sort of, results or numbers for the Member and provide that to him as soon as I can.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
