Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement today, my question today is for the Minister of Health and Social Services. As I mentioned, many residents of Hay River who are involved in agencies for helping people have been very busy putting together ideas and suggestions or initiatives to continue on our path of community wellness. I’d like to ask Minister Beaulieu, through you, Mr. Speaker, if he is any closer to knowing how much funding Hay River would be getting. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have the breakdown by community right here just on the wellness funding, but how we funded the project is, we were looking at the federal funding for community wellness funding. In 2011-12 we carried over $500,000 from the federal funding to start this project, start to initiate the wellness plans across the communities. This fiscal year that we’re currently in, we’ve brought another $350,000 into this fiscal year to complete more wellness plans across the territory. Thank you.
So I’m hearing $850,000 in total. How many communities will be participating in applying to access that pot of money? Thank you.
Our intention is to try to develop wellness plans for all of the communities. I think there will be wellness plans developed. Even in Yellowknife, it will be more complex, it will be working with non-government agencies. In some communities we just work with one body in the community where it’s simpler for us to do wellness plans. But the intention is for us to do wellness plans for all 33 communities. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, people in Hay River who have participated in this consultation, were canvassed for ideas for specific initiatives that could be carried out in the community. I’d just like to ask the Minister, wellness plans are one thing, initiatives within those plans is another matter. For that reason it would be really nice to know approximately when this funding is going to roll out. Is there a target date like April 1st? Just so the community knows, because they’ve put a lot of work into this. Thank you.
We get annually in excess of $12 million from the federal government on wellness funding. So what we’re hoping to do with the wellness plans to stay within the confines of bad budget, and as the wellness plans are developed and hopefully we do just a bit of internal movement, and we will be funding the wellness plans as we go. But the intention is to complete the wellness plans and then fund them as they’re completed. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the community wellness plan for Hay River has already been completed. That being the case, I understand it may be ahead of some other communities, but when could Hay River expect to receive funding? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, like I’ve indicated, I don’t have the community-by-community breakdown of that budget, but I suspect that if the wellness plans are completed that on April 1st they would be able to start funding the plans. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
