Glen Abernethy

Mr. Chair, we’re looking to build a state-of-the-art facility to meet the health needs of the residents of the Northwest Territories that will be maintained and operated for a significant number of years moving forward.

As I indicated, I agree with the Member that it’s important for us to get in there and have those conversations, and obviously, input from the community and the region is critical and important. I could give an example of where that really benefited was actually in Fort Providence in the discussions with the community and the professionals in that community. It actually resulted in a holding room, a body – I hate the term – but, a body holding room, a morgue, of sorts, being included in that facility, which was something the community really wanted to see.

So, I agree that conversations are...

Mr. Chair, understood, agreed. The CEO will be going into Tulita to meet with the staff and attempt to address the problem and give us a better idea of how long it will take to address. I will absolutely keep the Member informed as we move forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As mentioned yesterday during Committee of the Whole, we’re in the process of doing a planning study on that facility. We expect that to take another couple months, and from there that will help dictate how we move forward as far as inserting this particular project in the capital planning process.

But I do agree with the Member; this is a facility that needs to be replaced, but we just need to figure out how it fits based on the planning study.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ll say it again, there’s no intention and we will not be privatizing the delivery of medical and health services in the Northwest Territories, just so we’re incredibly clear.

This is a multi-year project. The RFP went out earlier this fiscal year. We have narrowed it down to three proponents. Discussions are happening with those proponents and we hope to have a proponent and move forward with a contract with that proponent. That, I believe, is expected to be June, if everything moves forward according to plan. Then there will be more of a design phase. That will be the...

The Member and I are actually talking about the same project at Fort Good Hope, and they have approached us, as well as Housing Corp and Justice because there’s an opportunity for everybody to work together to try and find some opportunities for Fort Good Hope, driven and led by Fort Good Hope.

I would like the deputy minister to talk a little bit about what we’re doing around housing for individuals that need temporary housing, safe shelters. Thank you.

As we roll out the last year, it is going to include some tweaking and training of the individual staff so that they know how to use the system properly.

With respect to the Woodland, absolutely agree. Unfortunately, we can’t count this as new beds because this is replacing beds that we’re losing, so we don’t get to count this as more beds. It does not change our ultimate count, whereas Norman Wells and Behchoko clearly do.

We are committed to working with Avens. We will continue to work with Avens. We’re waiting for them to come forward in this collaborative team, this steering committee, to come forward with a plan and a suggestion on how we should move forward. We don’t know that that’s going to be full-on GNWT capital or whether there are going to be some other opportunities. We’re exploring all of those opportunities at this time, and obviously, we’d like to see some partners come in on this.

At the same time, this report, this work that the committee is doing will come to us shortly. But the Member knows...

I am. Nobody approached me and said, we want to build Avens. The first I became aware of it is when I was approached by Avens and they said, we want to build and extend Avens, and that is something that I am committed to working towards. They first approached the department. Their first discussion with Avens was October…no, June 2013. So it’s great that they were talking about it for years. It might have been great if maybe they had started to engage with the department sooner.

In the meantime, Bob, I mean MLA for Weledeh, we are committed to working with… We are working closely with them. I’ve...

We are aware of the desires of Avens to expand the kitchen and improve it. We are working closely with them to make sure that we can find a way to move forward collaboratively together. We will continue to do that. We are waiting for the report to come from this committee, this steering committee, on the whole plan for the Avens facility, and we look forward to seeing it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.