Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This was actually discussed in committee with the Minister of Justice. Just for the record, this type of jury trial, the requirement for a French jury is incredibly rare here in the Northwest Territories. In fact, there’s been one. That’s not saying it won’t happen, but it is incredibly rare here and the department is obviously interested in continuing to work with the French community, who have been active in this process, to make sure that we can provide jury trials in French here in the Northwest Territories. We also obviously want to be cautious that we’re not...

I do, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Monday, March 2, 2015, I will move that Bill 47, An Act to Amend the Child and Family Services Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

There are 43 minutes on the clock and I’m pretty sure you don’t want me to use the entire 43 minutes. So what I’ll do is I’ll actually commit to get the Member a little bit of detail, because the question did actually contain a significant amount of detail. Needless to say, as we move forward with this differential response, we are about supporting families and putting mechanisms in to help families who are in a situation where their children may be in a neglect situation. Abuse situations will be different, but I’m happy to get all of that information, the binders, the information as well as...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A significant amount of work has been done around child and family services. The 16th Legislative Assembly did a comprehensive review where this exact question came up on a number of occasions. Also, the Auditor General recently brought forward a fairly scathing report of child and family services here in the Northwest Territories, and committee has been very, very, very active in articulating their concerns and their desire for significant change. As a result, we are moving forward with Building Stronger Families, an action plan to transform the child and family...

We actually have filled a large number of the physician positions on a permanent basis. But given that we do have a contract here in the Northwest Territories, those physicians who are resident here are entitled to education time and sick time as well as annual time. We want to make sure that we are continuing to provide services, so there is still a use of locums. But for the most part, in Yellowknife, in Hay River, in the Beaufort-Delta we’ve been able to get physicians in on a permanent basis. But until all positions are filled that way, we will continue to use some locums.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The recruitment and retention of physicians continues to be a challenge, but I think at this point in time we are actually doing fairly well. We have moved to a system where all the physicians are actually employees of one body rather than multiple bodies. This has actually given us some opportunities, because individuals can now have rights and access to Stanton even if they don’t happen to live in Yellowknife.

When we originally went to this one model, the expectation was that we’d be having physicians in Yellowknife who can actually provide services in other...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I do.

We had the same conversation during Committee of the Whole. There are no new dollars or additional dollars at this time. But as we can finish the continuing care standards and other documents that we’re working on, we will likely be in a position where we will have to identify areas that need funding. For ’15-16 there are no new or additional funds targeted to this particular topic. Thank you.

The department will be looking at a number of different jurisdictions. I can’t say off the top of my head whether they’re going to look at that one, but given that they are one of the leading jurisdictions, I can say for sure that certainly after today they will be.

Part of the process here is to make sure that people are aware of elder abuse, and I think our amazing partners like the NWT Seniors’ Society is doing amazing work to create awareness. But I do have to acknowledge that there is no consistent policy currently directing staff regarding the prevention, detection and response to elder...