Glen Abernethy

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...

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that has become incredibly clear as I travel around the Northwest Territories talking about these wellness councils, is that in each of the catchment areas, for lack of a better term, like the Beaufort-Delta or Inuvik or the Sahtu, the way that the particular council will be formed will be definitely tailored to the particular area. In Hay River, as an example, we will obviously have to work with the Hay River town council as well as the other areas that might use Hay River as a catchment area to come up with a reasonable approach to selecting the individuals...

We have to work with the authority; we have to work with their pension provider to figure out what the actual full cost of that is. We didn’t start doing it immediately in the summer. We wanted to move along a couple more steps to make sure that there was any interest in us moving forward to the one authority. If there was no interest, obviously doing that work wouldn’t have been necessary. So there is an interest; we are starting to move forward with the action and the steps necessary to make this happen and we are in the process of quantifying what those costs will be. As I indicated, as...

Mr. Speaker, this is a significant undertaking that’s going to take some time. We could rush it but I would be worried that we wouldn’t get it right, so we need to take the time in order to make sure we dot all of our i’s and cross all of our t’s and do all the work that is necessary.

Right now, as I have indicated, the first step is to bring forward the legislation that will allow us to create this entity. I plan to bring forward that legislation in the winter session. I hope it passes in the life of this Assembly. That’s my expectation. As soon as that legislation passes, my next step is to...

As we move forward, we are taking into consideration all the recommendations from the Auditor General, because the Auditor General made the exact comments that the Member is talking about. When it comes to lack of clinical standards, right now, with eight authorities, we have eight different sets of clinical standards and they’re not always the same, which actually makes it incredible difficult to have one system and guarantee that all of our residents have the same level and access to care. So, as one authority, the regional wellness council chairs will come together, form the board, and that...