Glen Abernethy

Last year I convened a meeting of Aboriginal leadership from across the Northwest Territories and had discussion around this exact topic. We sought input and advice from them, as well as other stakeholders from across the Northwest Territories on what the makeup of those committees should be. We are just in the process right now of doing some call letters out to the different organizations, including MLAs, on nominations for individuals to go on those wellness councils, based on the work that was done. Once that's done, we'll move forward with the establishment of those wellness committees.

Homecare services that we provide are a wide range of services. Not of all of it is nursing services. We do provide homecare nurses in a number of communities and regions throughout the Northwest Territories, but we do provide home support workers in every community in the Northwest Territories, with the exception, I believe, of two. We actually have contract relationships with those communities to provide some of those services. It may not be practical to assume that we'll ever get to a position where we can have a homecare nurse in every community of the Northwest Territories, but we are...

I did have a meeting with a federal Minister when we were at the most recent federal/provincial/territorial meeting. We did talk about seniors. We did talk about aging in place. We do understand that there is going to be some dollars available through the federal government, but we haven't got clear indication of exactly how those dollars can be spent and what they can be spent for. But there is certain going to be money available for social infrastructure through the federal government at some point. We will certainly keep committee and Members apprised of our discussions with them, so when...

Some initial work was done identifying the types of positions that would be required in that new facility as a result of it taking a new function in the Sahtu. The 18 long-term care beds was something that didn't exist in the region before. I'm happy to share the information that we have as we develop a transition report. I'm happy to have a sit-down with the Member and bring him up to speed on what's happening in that region. I do believe we have a bit of time. It's my understanding, as I indicated, that we're not taking ownership of that building until March 31, 2017, so we still have a bit...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, within the budget there are actually some dollars allocated for the transition from the old facility into the new facility. It's about $200,000. Our intention is to develop a transition plan, but we do have a bit of time. This facility doesn't open until tentatively March 2017, so the transition plan hasn't been fully formed. Once it’s done, I'm happy to share it with the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

No official dollars are actually allocated. We had committed as a government in the 17th Assembly, and I know the Minister today is also committed to working with the Assembly to find the dollars to support the Canada Winter Games bid. We were going to find those dollars, but no official dollars have actually been allocated into our budget. I can say that the federal government has announced they're going to invest in social infrastructure and I had an opportunity to meet with the Minister responsible, and we talked about some of the needs that we have in the Northwest Territories. Seniors'...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's a number of things we're doing, but I'll focus primarily on the beds that we're going to need for seniors here in the Northwest Territories. We've just completed our longterm care review, which I'm going to be sharing with committee in the coming weeks. I'm in the process of drafting a letter to send to committee so that I can share it with them, and hopefully we'll have an opportunity to sit down for a meeting. But I'll give some up front numbers: By 2026 this government is going to be 259 beds short in longterm care. Forty-seven of those are in...

We've been very clear since the initial discussions around health transformation that this isn't about saving money, necessarily. This is more about improving the quality of care that we're providing to our residents by removing some of the barriers that exist for them today. We do know that there's a number of functions that occur in each of the authorities, that by working together we'll be able to control our costs and possibly have some savings, but mostly this is focused on improving our care for the residents of the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the legislation has given us the authority to move to one authority in the Northwest Territories, as well as the Tlicho and Hay River Health authorities, was passed in May/June. It was initially intended to go live on April 1, but as a result of a number of factors including our difficulty getting the financial system for use by all the authorities; some delays we experienced during the election campaign; communication; and our ability to set up those wellness councils; and our delay in hiring a CEO -- I’ve decided to move forward the go-live date to August...

The homecare review that we're doing right now isn’t dependent upon the federal government. We're doing that work because it's necessary. Once we complete that work, we’ll be in a better position to actually have a conversation with committee and the public about how or what needs to be done around homecare. I wouldn't think it's too much of a stretch to assume that we need to look at our programs and provide different, maybe alternate training, than we currently do, so that we can help people age in their communities, which we know is better for patients and residents and clients to stay in...