Alfred Moses

Thank you. Just looking at how some of these authorities run and the services and programs that each authority provides in the communities, especially in the communities when you might just have one nurse who might get a call-out at seven o’clock at night. I just want to know what the department is doing in terms of their overtime policy, which could be one of our biggest cost drivers throughout all authorities. The callbacks, overtime, people getting sick and other individuals filling in. What is the department doing in terms of their overtime policy and whether they’re going to make a strong...

[Microphone turned off] …he’d be looking at working with these organizations and fund them a little bit more from our programs. I’ve talked about program duplication, but we’ve got organizations out there that are doing really good work on behalf of government and whether the Minister would sit down with these organizations and develop some contributions where they can support these successful programs.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to table a document developed by the Mental Health Commission of Canada. It’s titled “Informing the Future: Mental Health Indicators for Canada.”

One of the Members earlier talked about nursing in the small communities. As the Minister knows, we have eight communities that don’t have nurses. I wonder if the department would be looking at changing its policy in terms of looking at trying to see if we can staff nurses in some of these communities, but if not, the amount of days that a public health nurse or a nurse would go into the community. I know that in some cases, the Minister mentioned in the House that a public health nurse will go in for two days sometimes. But I wonder if he could change the policy so that there are more...

This document, the Mental Health Indicators for Canada, will help paint a complete picture of mental health throughout this country and also here in the Northwest Territories. It’s going to allow us to tell us how well we are doing or how poorly we are doing in terms of the health system in responding to Canadians’ mental health and well-being and their needs and what we need to do to effect the change and also here in the Northwest Territories.

Will the Minister and his department look at these? There are 13 indicators. Will he and his department look at these 13 indicators, compare it to our...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple of other things I didn’t get a chance to speak to last time. In terms of mental health services, I want to get a quick update on… I’m not sure if it was a pilot project or the work that was being done with Dalhousie University in terms of telehealth for mental health counselling services. Are we still using that and is it being utilized to a degree? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to reiterate that the implementation guide is available at no cost, so it would be no cost to government to take a look at that.

The last one is the Canadian Standards Association does a one-day workshop in partnership with the Mental Health Commission of Canada with regard to this implementation guide.

Would the Minister possibly look into having his staff take that one-day training and see how much of an impact it does have and whether or not we can develop a training type of program under these national standards? Would he ask his staff to look into that...

That action plan was developed February 2008 and a lot has changed in the last seven years, and I appreciate the Minister working with the Persons with Disabilities Council to look at modernizing this and see how we can take better steps in working with the Council and with individuals.

The next one is in terms of home care support and whether or not we’re providing our home care staff in the communities and in the regional centres… I know we have, I think, when I was working with public health, we only had one home care support worker, and to deal with a community of over 3,000 at the time was...

I do appreciate that. I think it will give us an indication of how well we as a government are doing for employees out in the workforce.

I mentioned that on November 25, 2014, the Mental Health Commission of Canada released the implementation guide for psychological health and safety workplace standards. This is the first time something like this has ever been done.

Is the Minister familiar with that program or that the release had happened last November and whether his department is looking into that type of implementation program as something we can build on here in the Northwest Territories...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess this is a big piece of the Health and Social Services in terms of programs and services that we provide to residents and also supporting our not-for-profit organizations. I guess the first question that I do have is about a year ago, yes, just over a year ago we tabled the Early Childhood Development Action Plan in the House here, and it was a combination between Education, Culture and Employment and Health and Social Services. When you look at the action items, the Department of Health and Social Services was accountable for 14 of those action items. With a year...