Marsi cho, Mr. Speaker. [Translation] Today, I would like to talk about homecare, the people who are working with the elders. I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services: would the Minister be prepared to allocate more homecare money into the system to help seniors stay in their homes as long as possible? [Translation ends]
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier in this Assembly, we put $2.5 million more into homecare support here in the Northwest Territories, creating a number of positions throughout the Northwest Territories. As the Member knows, we are also intending and planning to move forward with home and/or family community caregiver program that will help elders and persons with disabilities stay in their homes for as long as possible. We are getting close to being able to roll that out. We are hiring someone to help us with the final steps before we start reaching out to residents across the Northwest Territories on how to pilot that. Yes, Mr. Speaker, we are making investments in this area.
[Translation] Thank you. I have two questions there. There's the aging in place program. Is the Minister willing to put more money into the aging in place program? [Translation ends]
We are committed to moving forward with our Aging in Place Action Plan to find ways to help support our residents stay in their homes as long as possible. We are making an investment in this program now. We are getting individuals in place to help facilitate that piloting. Once the piloting is done, we will be in a better position to determine how much financial resources we need to support the program, but this is a model that we believe is going to be effective. This is a model that we believe is going to be helpful to our residents, and we are committed to rolling it out.
[Translation] My fourth question is: we ask for money at the Assemblies like that. Is the Minister prepared to request supplementary funding to run a couple of programs as soon as possible? [Translation ends]
If I understand correctly, the Member is asking whether I'm prepared to move a supplemental to fund more in this area this fiscal year. Mr. Speaker, we do have some dollars available in this fiscal year to help us with design. Until we actually have a design, it would be difficult to run it with a program. It would really be ad hoc, and I think what we want to do is learn from these opportunities, learn from these experiences, so we can develop the program that really meets the residents' needs.
We do have money in. We are rolling out. We will be seeking participants towards the end of this fiscal year so that we can do our testing next year, and then we will be in a really good position to determine what allocation of resources we are actually going to need to make this a reality in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
