Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With me today are Emily Ingarfield, the manager of policy and planning on my left; and Kelly McLaughlin, director of legislation on my right.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be here today to speak about Bill 38, An Act to Amend the Jury Act.

The main focus of the amendments to the Jury Act is to permit the Department of Justice to develop regulations that will allow French-speaking residents of Yellowknife to be effectively identified for inclusion on a specialized French jury list. There are also a number of minor amendments, including one that will add Public Prosecution Service of Canada employees to the list of persons exempted from jury service. Another amendment will repeal the provision of the act that references fees...

The act may not focus specifically on grandparents and elders or other family members, but the actual application of building stronger families moving forward is focused on the families. It is focused on providing supports to the families in situations of neglect to help those families find the solutions to the root causes of that neglect. Therefore, we’ll be able to keep the children in our communities, in our regions and in their homes for as long as possible, hopefully, until they’re ready to go off to college or university.

This is the direction we’re taking, and like I said, I’m happy to...

Research has shown that in the Northwest Territories the vast majority of apprehensions that have existed to date have resulted as a result of neglect, as opposed to abuse, which is one of the reasons we’re going to a completely differential response of dealing with children in those abuse situations.

The new approach is supporting families, finding ways to support families so that we can actually keep the children with the families. If they do need counseling, if they need all these other types of supports, we’re going to be there to work with them to find solutions.

When it’s abuse, we still...

I guess that would depend on the definition of trouble. Health professionals are a hard-to-recruit position. We continue to recruit on a regular basis, but for many of the allied health professions there is high turnover. We’re actually putting into force a strategic plan, a Health Human Resource Strategic Plan that is going to put in a number of mechanisms and tools to help us recruit and retain health professionals across the Northwest Territories. But we keep at it, we keep staffing, we keep filling, but turnover is a reality that we do have to work with.

Unless anything has changed in the last little while, my last update was that we actually did manage to get a permanent physician into Hay River. I will check with the department to confirm that. But the reality of being outside of the public service hasn’t interfered with this medical process in obtaining physicians.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With me on my left is Gary MacDougall, who is the director of legal registries and, on my right, Ian Rennie, who is legislative counsel responsible for this piece of legislation.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a few members of the Department of Health and Social Services here today with us in the gallery and I’d like to take this opportunity to recognize them: Yves Panneton, who is the manager of our primary community and acute care services and a chief nursing officer; Erin Currie, the senior nurse practitioner consultant; Carolan Bennett, the senior nursing consultant; as well as Peter Workman, the health emergency planner.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to recognize the chair of the Montessori Society here in Yellowknife, Dave Wasylciw, as well as the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be here today to speak about Bill 41, An Act to Amend the Partnership Act.

The Partnership Act governs the relationship between partners in a business partnership, including limited partnerships and limited liability partnerships, as well as the relationships between a partnership and those they deal with.

The primary focus of the proposed amendments is to improve the outdated registration requirements of the act. The bill includes amendments that require, in almost all cases, partnerships and business names be registered before the entity operates in the...

Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased to announce the official launch of the Med-Response call centre. Members of the Standing Committee on Social Programs joined me earlier today at Stanton Territorial Hospital to celebrate this milestone.

The Government of the Northwest Territories is breaking new ground in Canada with this single window approach to clinical consultation and air ambulance triage and dispatch. Med-Response will improve access to services and quality of care for people across the Northwest Territories, by providing immediate clinical support to health care practitioners in all...