Glen Abernethy

Mr. Speaker, the number of new cancer cases in the Northwest Territories is expected to rise dramatically by 2030. According to Canadian Cancer Statistics 2015, a report released by the Canadian Cancer Society earlier this year, the number of new cancer cases in all of the territories will increase by approximately 60 percent within the next 15 years, largely due to an anticipated increase in the seniors population.

To guide our planning for this increase in cases, the Department of Health and Social Services has developed the NWT’s first 10-year Cancer Strategy, Charting Our Course: Northwest...

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...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Public transportation is the responsibility of the municipalities, and this includes things like the handivan services. At the present time, the GNWT doesn’t have any available funding through the Department of Health and Social Services to support this initiative. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We are always working with the other departments, sharing technical expertise and information.

With respect to housing, we have occupational therapists who are available to do some assessments for individuals to determine what, if anything, they need in their individual homes, grab bars, ramps, many other things. So we do work with that. The Housing Corp has put in a program – I believe it’s called CARE, but I’m not 100 percent sure and I will confirm that later – where people can actually apply for money to do those ramps. We have occupational therapists and others who can come in and do...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The departments have taken a number of actions to address a number of recommendations that were in that report. The Department of Health and Social Services, as an example, has included a number of the recommendations in many of the different strategies were dealing with, like early childhood development. But I’d be happy to pull together a summary of what we’ve done with respect to each of the action items in the different areas within the department and I will certainly work with the other departments to pull that together.

We probably won’t be able to get that done in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the mover and seconder for bringing this motion to the floor as well as bringing the important discussion. I’ve listened carefully to all the Members and what I think is clear is that addressing the issues of individuals living with disabilities is a shared responsibility, and clearly we need to work together on solutions, whether that’s government to government or governments working with NGOs or NGOs working together. We must all work together in meaningful partnerships to actually make change and bring about change for people with disabilities.

To...

It’s a shared responsibility across the Government of the Northwest Territories depending on the different portfolios. Housing has a significant number of responsibilities around persons with disabilities and they have been addressing those. As does MACA with communities, as does Health and Social Services, things that we’ve done around the Early Childhood Development Action Plan, work around respite. As the Minister responsible, one of my responsibilities is to share information across the different departments and ensure that they are working towards a common goal, but it doesn’t change the...