Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, on page 5 what you see is basically a summary of previous years' projects that carry over in to multiple years that have already been approved by this Assembly, plus proposed projects for this fiscal year or 2018 fiscal year and the results of those projects moving forward.

It certainly doesn't include everything in our capital plan. For instance, if you look in this capital plan, in Inuvik you'll see one sum of money that we plan to use for our planning study this year because we have to do some permafrost tests, we have to do some site determination that will...

Mr. Speaker, there's still a discussion ongoing around that. There are some potential partners who have indicated they would like to follow an Avens-type model in Hay River, so it could be something like Avens, but we haven't made that final conclusion or decision.

It could be the Hay River Authority; it may not be. I think there's a lot of interest in the community on doing things a little different, being a little creative about how we actually provide those services to the residents of the community as well as South Slave, and we're open to all possibilities at this point in time.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Basically, yes. I mean, as we build new facilities like the one we built in Fort Resolution and the one we built in Fort Providence, those ones have more capacity. Our old buildings don't, and we aren't planning to make any major renovations to existing facilities to include those services, but maybe for more detail I'll go to Mr. Heath.

Mr. Speaker, it's a holistic plan focused on helping residents stay in their communities and their homes for as long as possible. That's at the very smallest community to the largest centre. If we have individuals in Yellowknife who want to stay in their homes for as long as possible, this plan is to help support them stay there. If we have residents in some of our smallest communities like Colville Lake or Tsiigehtchic, this plan is intended to help those elders stay in their communities and the regions for as long as possible, until it's not safe for them to do so. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Absolutely. I mean, this is consensus government. We are open and willing and excited to work together, so absolutely.

Mr. Speaker, earlier today I talked about the Continuing Care Action Plan. It is a priority of this government to help our elders and our seniors age in place or as close to their homes as possible. There are a number of activities that we are pursuing to provide supports to elders as they age so that they can stay in their homes. If they are unable to stay in their homes for safety situations or concerns, we are hoping to be able to support them through the Housing Corporation and other partners in independent living units in many of our communities throughout the Northwest Territories.

One of...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the Jean Marie health station is a future priority. It is not actually contained in this capital project or this capital budget. However, as we were with Sambaa K’e and it did not work out, we are certainly open to other methods of procurement, including the possibility of the community owning the building and then leasing it back to us. Our current relationship in the community is they own the building, we rent the building. We are open to that, but we would certainly need a building built to certain specifications and standards to meet the needs of our health...

As we've moved forward with the single system here in the Northwest Territories, we're focused on providing customer or client services that meet the needs of our residents. I would strongly encourage that the Member have individuals who are facing these challenges get in touch with social services who will hopefully be able to provide them with the guidance to help them get to family violence shelters around the Northwest Territories

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Health and Social Services currently contributes about $2.55 million to family violence shelters across the Northwest Territories. In addition, we make an additional $200,000 available to help individuals who are in communities where there are no shelters with transport or to get themselves to communities where there are shelters.

In light of the Member's question, I have also taken the additional step of directing the Department of Health and Social Services to work closely with the Department of Infrastructure to explore some of the...

The first step is obviously for the Department of Health and Social Services to work with Infrastructure to review the different pots that have been made available by the federal government to see what, if anything, fits nicely that we can actually use towards this end.

Also, as I have already indicated, we are working with the NWT Housing Corporation and the Minister responsible for Homelessness to make sure that we have opportunities or places where individuals could go when fleeing family violence. We do not know what pots necessarily might be able to cover this, but as this work gets done...