Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister of Health and Social Services tabled a document a few days ago entitled, “Health and Social Services Service System Annual Report, 2012-2013.” The title was “Measuring Success and Focusing on Results.” I believe in that. I encourage that and I promote that. I appreciate the information. There are a lot of good stats and results that were in there; however, if I can refer people that might look at the report to priority two, the prevalence of smoking in 15-year-olds and older.

In 2002 our smoking rates in the NWT were 46 percent, which is about half the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The committee recommends this amount of money specifically for child and family resource programs and services to be rolled out in at least six small communities, building on the success of the pilots in Tulita and Ndilo. Members favour these programs and services because it will provide meaningful support to at-risk families. We also strongly believe that the Department of Health should work with the Department of ECE.

Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, the Minister did table a good report earlier this week and I just want to refer to some statistics that were brought out...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do have a few issues within the community programs here, but rather than get into back and forth questioning, I think what I’ll do is begin with reading in a motion regarding the child and family resources programs and services, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a quick comment but then I do have one question in particular. The Minister did release this document Measuring Success, the annual report for NWT Health and Social Services. It has a lot of good stats in it, and it just kind of goes to show when we do put money into prevention, promotion and education that we do get results from our territorial statistics.

Specifically I want to talk to something that came out of this report. In priority 3 it mentions that the number of clients receiving home care in their home community is at 2,071. That’s 168 more than in 2011-2012...

I know there was a lot of miscommunication within a certain area within the Beaufort-Delta region there, and moving forward, as we go through the shared services and innovation planned strategies, that when we have the Department of Health and Social Services and possibly the Department of Human Resources that are giving this information out, that it’s on the same level of input and the same level of message being sent, because it has caused some stress and caused some insecurities within our employees of the GNWT. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I appreciate that. I know when we’re looking at these numbers, we’re not just looking at numbers and positions but there are people behind these positions and jobs are lost. There’s a chance we’re affecting families. We talk about increasing the population if jobs are lost within the authority. Specifically on the next page when we go into shared services, that’s potentially three families leaving the Beaufort-Delta Health Authority in Inuvik, so it’s really difficult while we approve the numbers fully, that possibly there are some numbers in there that can be affected. I just want to state...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a quick question here. I know the Minister is familiar with some of the e-mails that have been going back and forth between the Members from the Inuvik region. I see that there are two indeterminate part-time positions that we are losing, but we’re also gaining four intermediate full-time positions. Does the Minister know what those two indeterminate part-time positions are and whether those indeterminate positions are possibly being moved over to full-time positions. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I do understand the process and appreciate that the government takes that step. However, some of these individuals might be from a small community and have never been to a city before and had those types of interactions.

Does the government have a division or one point of contact that can, on a regular basis or on a weekly basis, follow up with our clients down south to see how the program is going, how the individual is doing or if they are thinking of leaving, continue to encourage and support them to stay in the program? Obviously it is a lot of money and we do want to make sure they receive...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask some questions to the Minister of the Department of Health and Social Services today. It is with regard to some of our most vulnerable clientele who have low incomes and are probably not ready for when we send some of our residents down to out-of-jurisdiction treatment facilities. I’d like to ask the Minister, him personally as the Minister of Health and Social Services, is he familiar with the type of environment and atmosphere that our residents and people in care who get treatment, the physical environment, that our residents will be going into...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I said, there are some concerns that I have with this section of the budget and rather than get into detail I would like to just come right out and I’d just like to read another motion into the House.