Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To the Member’s points about this bill being resource poor. During committee and other discussions, we were pretty clear that we know this bill is going to take some money to make a reality and we’re talking about just a specific bill, not any additional plans that we have outside of that.

At this time we feel it’s going to take an additional three positions to help us make some of this work, plus training, plus we have to have costs for the review board. That’s just a starting point and we will be going through the business planning process, rather, the department will be...

I do, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the mover and seconder for bringing this motion to the floor for this important conversation around medical travel. I clearly hear the Members as well as I clearly hear the residents of the Northwest Territories.

Medical travel is an essential component of our health care system, one that affects each and every one of us, every resident, at some point in their lives. As a result, it’s a subject about which many people feel quite passionate, as we’ve heard today, and hold incredibly strong opinions. We all want to know that support is there to ensure...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize students from the Aurora College Social Work and Nursing programs who are visiting the Legislature today. They are accompanied by their instructors, Vanessa Rankin and Jodi Brennan. I am going to attempt to pronounce these names, and if I get any wrong, please don’t hold it against me.

Within social work we have Michelle Bourke, Diana Bui, Jessika Claros, Jordon Moffitt, Amanda Pike, Romy Quackenbush, Sade Sada and Alice Thrasher.

The nursing students we have are Laila Nesbitt, Sarah Pope, Constance Afoakwah, Adoma Akua, Beth Thompson, Sasha Stanton...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, that Bill 68, An Act to Amend the Child and Family Services Act, No. 2, be read for the third time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to say that we won’t have to come forward for a supp for Norman Wells because I’m hoping that the department and FMB and the Department of Finance are able to finalize what is actually required and included in the business planning process so we don’t have to come forward for a supp. But, at the same time, I do recognize that some of this stuff is fluid and we are doing the planning but we don’t know the exact opening date of the Norman Wells facility so there are still a couple of ifs in the air. But I would like to say that hopefully we won’t have to come forward for a supp...

I’ll just repeat the same thing. I mean, we have the list of positions that have been approved, including the full-time and the relief, and those were deemed to be essential for opening the new facility and running the new facility. There were a number of other positions and many of them are, like, point five of a position or point 25 of a position. It was very difficult to provide a sound justification without actually being able to get into the facility to open it.

I’m happy to share some of those numbers with the Members from Hay River, but I do want to be clear that that does not mean that...

Thank you, Madam Chair. We were talking about a similar situation the other day with respect to Stanton and new facilities. When it comes to Hay River, when the building began construction the Hay River authority was tasked with figuring out how many positions would be required to properly run that facility. I think, as in most cases, there was the “I would love to have” list, the “absolutely need” list and the “I would like to have” list. The 32 was the dream list of adding programs, enhancing some services and doing some things slightly different. But given the mandate of the project, it...

That question is kind of impossible to answer standing up here today. Every individual is different and every situation is different. Not all individuals end up having an amputation; not all individuals end up blind. We want to manage diabetes with the patients to avoid having to go down that particular road.

We also know that diabetes is often complicated with other conditions, so how do you determine whether it’s strictly diabetes or another condition that has actually resulted in the particular amputation or blindness? It would be very difficult for us to actually quantify what is...

As I indicated, through BETTER project we’ve developed these motivational videos. We’ve been working with Education, Culture and Employment that has a project called Screen Smart, which is introduced in NWT schools to help children who may be obese to pursue healthy living so they don’t develop type 2 diabetes later in life. I’m not 100 percent sure; I can’t remember the exact program the Member is referring to with respect to diabetes education, but we are, through our public health unit, getting information out there on diabetes to make sure people are as informed as possible. If the Member...