Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I would like to follow up on my statement about the potential for getting the Avens expansion project off the ground this year, not in five or 10 years’ time.
I would like to first ask the Minister, I know that there has been a working group, a joint working group between the department and Avens that has been getting together and meeting and doing some work over the last number of months. I would like to ask the Minister, first off, for an update on where the work of the working group is at. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I and my Cabinet colleagues, as all Members in this House, are committed to the seniors of the Northwest Territories and obviously we want to make sure that our programs and services are meeting their needs. We as a department have Our Elders: Our Communities elders strategy which is focused on aging in place which ultimately does address or talk to the need for additional housing units or beds for seniors here in the Northwest Territories.
Avens is an incredibly important partner of ours and we have been working very closely with Avens to move their project forward. We have provided Avens with $25,000 to participate in the working groups to move this project along. We also helped, or rather, got out of the way of Avens so that they could move forward with the leveling of the ground on their campus. We do have a working group and as part of that working group there are two sub working groups and one of them is to continue to advance the partners to the GNWT’s capital planning process. Second is to participate in oversight of the financial model related to multi-year block funding and client rates outside of the current regulatory environment.
These aren’t simple questions. These require a significant amount of analysis and work. I know the Avens is frustrated with the progress, as are we. Recognizing that things haven’t been moving as fast as, say, Avens or even we had wished they would, the department is actually going to be contracting with a consultant to support the detailed financial regulatory as well as legal analysis necessary to provide an accurate and comprehensive range of funding options to help move this project forward. I expect that work to be done in October. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for the information. I have to reference his comment to Our Elders: Our Communities and that the focus of that is aging in place. That’s all well and good, but we all know that seniors reach a point where they cannot age in their own home, and that’s where we need to provide for them in a supportive living environment of some sort. So, I’m pleased to hear that there’s work going on. I’m dismayed to hear that it’s going to be October before there will be results, but I can appreciate that it’s complex.
So, I’d like to ask the Minister, in light of our changed financial landscape on the heels of the announcements from the federal government, has the Minister had an opportunity to consider our changed financial landscape, and if so, what new options does that provide for us in relation to this specific project? Thank you.
The Cabinet has regularly spoken about our current fiscal situation and the fiscal realities facing both the government of today and the government tomorrow.
In the Premier’s statement earlier today, he said this increase to our borrowing limit gives the Government of the Northwest Territories increased flexibility to invest in much needed infrastructure that will support the responsible development of the Northwest Territories economy to bring down the cost of living for communities and residents. We’ve also been incredibly clear that this money is not intended to be used for operations or maintenance, which would be a big problem.
The construction of a new facility, the new 30 beds for Avens, comes with an O and M price tag as well. For instance, when we moved forward about five years ago with the development of the dementia facility on the Avens compound as part of the capital planning process, it also came with a $3.9 million annual operation and maintenance cost to hire staff and provide those services. All that money is coming from the Government of the Northwest Territories. The current facility also has a $3.4 million price tag for the long-term care beds or the supported living beds that exist within the Avens compound, and construction of a new Avens facility would come with increased O and M costs as well.
So, we have to make sure that we do our due diligence, that we do our analysis and that those costs are understood and reasonable and that we can afford to continue to provide those services. The build is just one part of it. The ongoing maintenance is another part. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for that extensive response. I didn’t really hear an answer to my question about options based on our new financial situation. So, I would hope that that would be coming in the near future and I’d hope it would be a discussion that Cabinet would have in conjunction with Regular Members. It’s been promised, but we’ve seen no evidence of that yet.
So, I’d like to ask the Minister at this point, I appreciate that he’s doing everything he can, but we still have seniors who have nowhere to live. There was a situation that was highlighted in the paper last week, a senior who was being, he’s still there now, but a senior who is being removed from his current place at Avens and had nowhere to go to. So, until the Avens expansion is done, hopefully within a year, I’d like to know what the Minister is doing in the interim to accommodate seniors, like the one in the paper last week, who are in need of assisted or supported living housing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
We’re doing a number of things. We’re doing things in partnership with the Seniors’ Society as well as our other health and social services authorities across the Northwest Territories.
The Member is aware that we have recently opened nine beds in Behchoko. We are in the middle of constructing nine more in Behchoko. There are 18 beds being constructed in Norman Wells. More beds were put into Fort Smith. This isn’t just a Yellowknife problem. We know that the Beaufort-Delta has experienced some real congestion there as well.
With the territorial admission process that all residents who wish to utilize our long-term care or, sorry, the supported living beds provided in our different facilities must go through. That process does an assessment on the needs, the risks and the factors, and we can put individuals in beds in different communities. There are some vacancies in Fort Smith that we have suggested are available, but we’re also moving forward with the construction of beds, which should help alleviate the burden in Yellowknife but it doesn’t take it away. I recognize that and we are working closely with Avens to make progress on the construction of more beds here in Yellowknife. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister again. I appreciate that we are building more facilities. I think the Minister mentioned 27 beds. Our waitlist, unfortunately, is probably at least twice that and probably more like three times that. So, those beds will be welcomed, but we need to get more beds, and Avens is an opportunity to do that.
From the Minister, I’d like to know the earliest date that he can give me for Avens to move ahead and build their facility with government assistance. Thank you.
It would be impossible for me to give a hard and fast date. As the Member knows, we have a pretty thorough capital planning process, and for us to bring forward the project into the capital plan, we have to have a very, very thorough analysis articulated clearly, all O and M costs so that we can make decisions together as a Legislature.
I already mentioned the work that we’re doing in the department with our consultant, who is clearly going to be moving forward and doing the analysis needed to build that super strong business case that will allow us to move forward with this particular project. I’m hoping that we can have this work done in October, which will help inform the process. Hopefully, we can have something in the capital planning process in the near future. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
