Glen Abernethy

I indicated that the rates went up in 2007, and following up on a recommendation from committee, we’re doing another review of those rates. As I indicated, we’re working very closely with the Foster Family Coalition for the Northwest Territories on that review. As of today the rate of Yellowknife is still $24 an hour, but as I indicated, there’s also the age of child bonus that can be added on to that based on the age of the child. They will get a bonus of $4 a day for children between the ages of zero to five, $3 a day for six to 12, and $5 a day for 13 to 18. That’s on top of the $24.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am pleased to be here for the Department of Justice to introduce Bill 42, An Act to Amend the Residential Tenancies Act.

Bill 42 addresses a number of concerns that have been brought to the attention of the Department of Justice through a series of engagements with stakeholders.

It includes amendments which will ensure that orders of the rental officer are enforceable by permitting them to be filed in the Supreme Court instead of the Territorial Court, allow a victim of family violence to make an application to terminate a tenancy agreement, and establish regulation...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We know that the Northwest Territories has a significant incidence of domestic and/or family violence. Domestic violence in the Northwest Territories is a complex issue with no single solution. One of the main goals of the 17th Legislative Assembly is to support development of sustainable, vibrant and safe communities. In order to achieve this goal, we need to reduce the levels of family violence across our territory.

The Department of Health and Social Services focuses on prevention and intervention of family violence including providing recovery as well as support...

I appreciate the words the Member is putting in my mouth. The bottom line is obviously it will carry more weight if it comes from one of the standing committees, in this case the Standing Committee on Social Programs. I do hear the Member. I will look at it, but I would appreciate hearing something from the Standing Committee on Social Programs as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We work closely with the Foster Family Coalition. If that issue is brought to us by committee or by them, we will certainly look at it, Mr. Speaker.

As I’ve already indicated, our policy doesn’t currently do that, but we are willing to reimburse if a second opinion is determined to be necessary upon completion of the second opinion. I have already indicated it is part of the medical travel modernization and this is something we’re looking at. We need to make sure we are detailed on this assessment because not everyone needs a second medical opinion and we want to be careful about how far we put ourselves out there financially. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Since the Minister made his initial set of questions in 2013, we have hired a clinical advisor within the Department of Health and Social Services who is helping us to determine or quantify some of these results and questions in these areas. I just want to be clear to the Member, in some complex areas, medical diagnoses, some patients clearly would like to get a second opinion from another doctor. Doctors will respect a patient’s request, reasonable request, for a second opinion from a physician of the patient’s choice. This is consistent or is straight from the...

The Social Envelope Committee of Cabinet meets on a frequent but not scheduled basis and we talk about topics that have come up either in the House or directly from other individuals from outside of the government itself, and we’re topic based. We have had issues or topics specific to seniors but we don’t have a seniors standing agenda item.

As the Minister responsible for Seniors, like I said, I do have a lot of different groups, different seniors’ societies coming to me on a regular basis with issues that are cross-departmental and I do bring those forward to the respective departments and...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would just like to take another opportunity to thank standing committee for all their hard work on this bill. I know it was a significant amount of work. I would also like to thank the department and all the staff who worked on this. They did a significant amount of work and a significant amount of analysis in order to get this right, so I’d like just to take this opportunity to thank all the staff here as well as the staff in the department and the standing committee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not sure there are enough minutes on the clock to outline all the things the Department of Health and Social Services in addition to the Housing Corp, Education, Culture and Employment and all the other departments are doing to support seniors. But I will go into a few of the items that the department is undertaking.

We do have Our Elders, Our Communities, which is a framework for action on improving the results for seniors in the Northwest Territories. Our Elders, Our Communities outlines priority areas that will be used to guide future programming and design for...