Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I had the opportunity to go and meet with some of the participants at the Weaving our Wisdom territorial wellness gathering over at the Explorer Hotel. I had some really good discussions with past colleagues as well as with some people here who are doing some good work. One of the areas that we talked about was prevention and promotion, in terms of putting funding into our dollars.
So I’d like to ask the Minister, is there anything that currently mandates this government, or is there any legislation that we have that says that this government needs to put money into prevention and promotion? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We don’t have legislation, as far as I’m aware of, that dictates or requires us to put money into health promotion. But as the Member knows, we have increased the number of dollars that we have put into promotion and prevention here in the Northwest Territories during the life of this Assembly significantly, and we’re always looking to work with partners to find ways to create awareness and encourage healthy living for all residents in the Northwest Territories by way of prevention and promotion. Thank you.
I agree with the Minister in terms of putting more dollars into prevention and promotion, and we are slowly seeing some of the results with the health status reports and what we’re hearing in the communities.
I know in Ontario, Ontario has a Health Protection and Promotion Act. Would the Minister be looking at this legislation and looking at possibly seeing if it’s something that this government might want to look into and possibly put into documents going into the 18th Assembly? Thank you.
I’m, unfortunately, not aware of the particular legislation that the Member is talking about, but it is an interesting idea and I’ll certainly have the department take a look at the legislation and provide me with a bit of an overview of what it is and how it works within that jurisdiction.
As far as moving forward, I’ll share the information I get with committee, and if it’s the wish of committee, we’re certainly willing to have those discussions. Thank you.
The good thing about when you talk with people in the public is they have a lot of information, and this was just brought to my attention and I think it’s something that this government really needs to look at in terms of legislating, that we have to go out and educate people and it’s got to be part of our mandate. So, I’m glad the Minister is going to be looking at it. I know we have a lot of legislation to get done from now until the end of this Assembly as well.
Continuing on prevention and promotion, can the Minister provide me with details on how many regional health promotion offices we have currently in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Unfortunately, I haven’t memorized the number of health promotion officers that we have throughout the Northwest Territories, but I will get that information for the Member as quickly as possible. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know we’ve put a lot of money into prevention and promotion. Is there a percentage of those dollars that are allocated to the training and the development of our community health representatives or health promotion officers? Are there dollars that are allocated to the training and development of our employees? Thank you.
Our employees are our most valuable resources and we’re committed to their continued development. I know that there are dollars available for training particular activities, but as far as the number of dollars allocated to train health promotion officers, I don’t have that number.
We are, as I’ve indicated, committed to our staff. We want them to be current. We want them to be up to date on practices and procedures, and we want them to be continually evolving so that they can be current at all times. So, I will do a little bit of digging and I’ll get some specific numbers for the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
