Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Chair. These dollars all flow to the authorities for the provision of French language services during the provision of health care. This is a direct result of a court case against the Government of the Northwest Territories which the GNWT lost, and it was negotiated how we would meet that ruling in that court case which resulted in significant dollars following into not just Health and Social Services, but all the departments; Education, Culture and Employment, to ensure that we can provide services to our residents in French.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. When we were out discussing this with the different Aboriginal governments we heard that they didn’t want a cookie cutter approach. They wanted to be able to do things their way based on the realities in the different regions. However, we recognize that, you know, there are great things happening in different regions, so we’ve been pulling together the best practices and highlighting, and demonstrating, and showing the different regions what’s happening in the other regions so that they could steal good ideas and things that work. We were also making clinical staff...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, with me today is, on my right, Debbie DeLancey who is the deputy minister, Health and Social Services, and on my left, Jeannie Mathison who is the director of finance, Department of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I can’t recall the exact number that it would have cost to bring Hay River into the public service in 2005. Anecdotally, I have heard numbers of $2 million, $3 million, $4 million, $5 million to bring them into the Superann as a pension. Now we believe that number to be significantly higher. We are working with Superann. We are working with our partners to try to quantify what the exact cost to bring them into the GNWT’s pension would be. We are still doing work that is going to be necessary once negotiations begin with the UNW and the Hay River Authority to bring their...

That is correct, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I indicated, we have two positions that have been sunsetted, one in Norman Wells, one in Yellowknife. We’ve got three new positions that have been created, two fulltime, one parttime for the Mental Health Act, and to help us with the implementation of that. Those three positions are in Yellowknife. We have some internal re-allocations. As I indicated, the Beaufort Delta midwifery positions, one parttime, one fulltime, and those are to help with the planning and design of the territorial midwifery program. Those are not in Beaufort Delta. We’ve brought them to...

Thank you, Chair. Mr. Chair, in the new model there are no public administrators with the exception of Hay River until such a time as Hay River comes into the single authority. There are board chairs and there are regional advisory committee members. Those individuals are intended to help us, you know, make sure we’re hearing from the people of the ridings, of the communities, bringing their information forward, helping us tailor programs to fit communities and regions. The chairs of the regional wellness councils are the board of the new authority. I’m answering the Member’s question. I’m not...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Some of it, $100,000, is going to Mental Health First Aid and ASSIST. $300,000 is going to addictions, aftercare, youth addictions prevention, youth detox models, mental health, and some into the Akaitcho health curriculum. To break it down into more detail, $17,000 is going to Beaufort Delta, $25,000 to Deh Cho, $5,000 to Fort Smith, $13,000 to Hay River. Now the lines are starting to blur. Sorry, those were last year actuals, so that sort of shows how it breaks out across the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following two documents entitled Follow-up Letter to Oral Question 122-18(2): Seniors Advocate, and Follow-up Letter to Oral Question 130-18(2): Hay River Family Support Centre. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We do rely on some historical precedent. I mean, some of the authorities such as the Sahtu, by way of example, are… The wellness council is going to be made up of roughly the same geographical region that the Sahtu health and social services board members were actually on. For areas where there was a question, I did have conversations with some of the leaders in communities to find out what their interests were, where they thought might be most appropriate. In most cases, they deferred to having input into the region or health authority or, sorry, health council that was...