Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we have heard an awful lot over the last number of years of the importance of grandparents and extended families and trying to get children placed with grandparents and extended family first as opposed to, say, necessarily going into the foster care system.

In order to get grandparents and extended family members compensated for when they do take a child, we have put in an expedited referral process, so an expedited assessment process, for family members so that we can consider them foster parents and place the children with extended family, e.g. grandparents...

Noted, Mr. Chair, and we are always looking for opportunities for quality improvement. If you have got individuals who are willing to flag that, please have them flag it so that we can include it and take it from anecdotal to reality so that we can move forward on that.

I guess when it comes to language, the only recommendation I would have for individuals who wish to have non-medical escort as a result of language barriers is do not also take a unilingual person with them. Try to find someone who is bilingual. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there are a multitude of reasons that a family might find themselves in difficulty, where they either need to enter into a voluntary service agreement or, in worst case scenario, there are abuse issues and the child needs to be apprehended. In many cases, it may be as a result of struggles the parents are having around addiction issues or other issues. Often we find, but don't have a correlation, that often people are in situations of neglect or abuse. Many of them are faced with poverty. It is an issue that we obviously try to address here in the Government of...

Just for the record, Mr. Chair, the Minister of Health, federal Minister of Health, clearly knows my position, as does the Minister responsible for Social Services, as does the federal Minister responsible for Addressing Poverty, as does they all do. I have no problem continually mentioning the value of a national pharmacare strategy. I did raise it in our last social services FPT, where we were talking about poverty. It is certainly an opportunity to help this country address poverty, having a national pharmacare strategy. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am going to go to the deputy for detail, but I think the important thing here is that obviously there is an opportunity for us to work with MLAs in those regions to get that information out. We will certainly have further discussions on how we can get that information out. For some more specific detail, I will go to the deputy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, as I have indicated, moving to a single system is our over-arching theme, or our goal is client-focused. Focus on the patient, client-based, a client-based system. Having said that, because not every service can be provided in every community, medical travel is going to continue to be a necessity. By working together as one authority, we've had the opportunity to look at different standards, different practices, having authorities cooperating, including Stanton, to a greater degree, with some of the remote communities and some of the work done.

We also put in a...

Yes, please, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, at this point I don't believe the federal government has any interest in a national pharmacare strategy. I feel that that is a mistake, but that is just my personal opinion, not a government position by any stretch of the imagination. I have had an opportunity to talk to a number of the different provinces and territories who would like to see a national pharmacare plan put in place.

Having said that, given that, prior to this current government, we didn't really have a relationship with the federal government at a provincial or territorial level, having...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Without committing any financial dollars at this point, we're certainly open to an outline of what the community is proposing. We could see how it might work in that community and other communities across the Northwest Territories, recognizing, of course, you know, we have to spend our money wisely, but I'd be certainly interested in seeing what the community is proposing and see where we can go from there.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll get the information update on when this particular round of standing offer agreements ends. As I said, I think we must be open to look at alternatives to ensure that medical travel remains as supportable as possible, but that we're not adversely affecting other airlines or the existing airlines in any negative ways. I think we have to look at the market, for sure. Thank you, Mr. Chair.