Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Madam Chair. If I can direct the question to the Minister of Health and Social Services on the current regulations. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Absolutely. This is not about how do you like the new hospital, or how do you like the contractor providing food services. This is about how do we keep you and how do we get new people? If you are doing a good survey, you have both closed questions that are very, this is what I want to know, how much time do you want to work sort of thing, and open questions that say: what are some ideas that you would give me? We have to be open to both. This survey will incorporate both some closed questions and some open questions so that we can get all the feedback as appropriate. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Two things: one, like I said earlier, we can't do this alone, so we are open to partnerships. If something like the Arnica Inn came and they were offering something or an Indigenous government, we would be open to partner with that, so we might do it. The other thing to manage alcohol is kind of on its own. It kind of combines, and yet it is on its own. I am going to try to be politically correct because I respect the people that I spent 20 years working with, is that there are people, Madam Chair, that the level of addiction and the damage that has happened is so...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the comments. The Member is absolutely correct. A lot of the harvesting happens in the smaller communities, fishing, hunting, et cetera, but we also have a market in the regional centres as well, for example, our community gardens. I recognize that it is totally different, so this mandate will go across all regions and all small communities.

We talked about how one of our mandates, as well, is regional decision-making, but it is bigger than that. It is about really looking, when we allocate positions, where they are best situated. Thank you, Madam Chair. We...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Those are ideas that we are searching for, ideas of putting scholarships, so when we do our recruitment plan, those are the kind of things that we are looking for suggestions from. We will be gathering that feedback. Is there a link with the polytech? I would like to say "absolutely" right now. However, we made a commitment with the polytech that we would be going out in the fall to do a survey, find out from people what we should specialize in. In that regard, it would be inappropriate for us to make a commitment until we have done that work. The Minister of Education...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, measuring success is really an objective kind of philosophy. For a young child, perhaps coming from a family of parents who drink frequently, success was one day sober. For other people, it might be longer. What we have done, the number of individuals requiring a return to treatment is reduced, and the length of time between treatment is increased are the ways that we will measure. I do want to qualify that success may not mean that less people, more time before rehab treatment. Again, those things might not be the success. I think it is an individual family...

Thank you, Madam Chair. In my opening comments on the mandate, there was a paragraph that says we also recognize that, to better report and meaningfully measure progress, in many cases, we need to establish indicators and improve program evaluation. The work we do towards ambitious goals set in the mandate will include the establishment of new indicators and a greater focus on program evaluation. Madam Chair, as I have said many times, one of my specialties is an accreditation in best practices. Therefore, we are going to be doing more measurable outcomes throughout the GNWT over the next four...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Those are some of the ideas that we are hoping to draw out as we work with employees and partners to identify the factors contributing to retention. I am a social worker, it is kind of close, but I don't deal with blood. The reality is that I am thinking that the fact that we don't have enough healthcare professionals might be one of the biggest issues that we have with that. People do need to have holidays. We do need to keep them. I do believe that GNWT has strict policies on those things. If we are saying you can't, it is because we don't have enough staff. We need...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The title "What will we do" is "Strengthen community counselling services." Waitlists are regarding that. You can't reduce the wait times for access unless we have other options to do it. This is one that we do have statistics, so we do have a percentage that we want to lower it by, hopefully. We can't lower that until we have stronger peer support groups, until we have managed alcohol groups, all those things that are being implemented before will help us with the wait times. That is why it is at the end. It is because we need all of the other programs and support to...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Absolutely. The three territories have over the years, many years is my understanding, developed strong partnerships when we go to speak to the federal government. We will continue to do so, and I will make a commitment to bring this issue forward to the other two Premiers. Thank you, Madam Chair.