Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department is participating in bring your child to school today. The department hosted students who have been involved in learning how the Department of Health and Social Services works on projects that help NWT residents access health care services and also learn about nutrition. They provided some great incite and ideas on how the department could focus some of their efforts, so I would like to recognize the two individuals here with us today, Grade 9 students from Ecole St. Patrick High School. That is Ethan Carey and Josh Deleff, and with them, as well, is Josh...

Mr. Speaker, I’ve had a lot of conversations with our director of territorial services as well as social workers on this particular issue. We know there are significant limitations in the legislation itself and we have to make those changes. I actually anticipate that the legislation is going to take less than two to three years to be rolled out. We are hoping to have legislation available in this government, in this Assembly, but it likely will be in the next Assembly. But we are moving on it because it’s that important.

As far as dealing with the individuals, we are continuing to make social...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last year we actually went out and started doing some consultations and getting input from the communities. We had a discussion paper that was put online and shared with committee. Both the department and the committee went out looking for additional input on that. We’ve used that data to develop an LP. The LP has gone to committee. On October 20th the committee returned the LP and I am now taking that forward to Cabinet. As soon as it is passed in Cabinet, we will be issuing drafting instructions from the Department of Health and Social Services to the Department of...

When I was in Hay River, the concerns I heard were: is this centralization, what about bringing our people in from Hay River into the public service, and the other one was the board and how would we get back to a board or council for Hay River representation. Absolutely, this is not centralization. Even if we work together and partnership purchase to get economies of scale, we are still going to need the individual in the Hay River for Health and Social Services Authority or the regional hospital to coordinate the purchase of the supplies they need. We will still need those individuals at the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When I was in Hay River earlier this summer, talking about board reform and the governance changes that we are proposing, I did meet with the public and one of the things that came up on regular basis is recognizing that Hay River is outside the public service and how do we bring them in. We are working on that right now. We are quantifying what the cost might be to bring them over into the public service and what other actions may be necessary. Once we have that information, we will be in a better position to figure out what our next steps will be and how and if we can...

I’ve been very careful not to say that this will save us a significant amount of money. This is about improving the services and the results for the people of the Northwest Territories and removing the barriers to care that exist, which are obviously bad for the patients. We anticipate an opportunity to control future spending through shared services like working together on things like purchasing and other functions, but it’s difficult to quantify what those savings will be. We are putting together a project team now to start working through some of these details, and as I’ve indicated, as...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. One of the key differences to what we’re doing in the Northwest Territories is coming to one authority. It’s actually the creation of these regional wellness councils which are going to be advisory bodies made up of individuals from the community and the region in which they serve. So for example, in the Beaufort-Delta we have a board, it is being run by a public administrator now, but that board will cease to exist. We’ll put in place a wellness council that will be made up of individuals from the regions, hopefully from every community, and they will have the ability to...

Mr. Speaker, this government is committed to improving the health and social services system in the Northwest Territories. Over the last year I have travelled to every region of the NWT to consult with residents, communities, Aboriginal governments and staff in the regional authorities. Everywhere I go I have heard from people that they don’t care about bureaucratic boundaries and regional silos. They just want the best possible care for themselves and their loved ones. They want to be sure that we can afford to provide excellent care into the future.

Based on what we’ve heard from the people...

Thank you. I hear the Member and I agree with the Member, but we are still limited by the existing act. We have to be careful on what we do because we may be in a position where we breach the legislation, which we don’t want to do. We have to change the legislation. The changes are coming. I’m looking forward to working with the Member and all the rest of the Members to improve this legislation.

In the meantime, one of the things that we’re trying to do, as a government and as a department, is break down some of the stigma that exists around mental health and mental illness and provide people...

I have been having very similar conversations with constituents and front-line professionals myself, and there is no question that the current Mental Health Act is outdated, is not meeting the needs of our people, but it is the act that we have in place so we have to continue to be vigilant with the act we have and individuals have to keep coming forward and identifying individuals who are in need and reporting them to the RCMP and/or the health authorities as appropriate.

The bottom line is that the act doesn’t meet the needs of the people and we have to change the act so that we can actually...