Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have signed a contract with the Council of Persons with Disabilities to provide the services for two years. The two-year contract is $619,400, which is just over $300,000 a year. We have also signed a two-year lease with the provider of the actual facility, which works out to $5,400 a month, which is about $64,800 a year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. Cancer is obviously a big deal in the Northwest Territories. It is one of the leading causes of death in the Northwest Territories and to that end we are currently developing an NWT Cancer Strategy, which does incorporate input from many different groups, including the group that the Member has already referenced today. We’re also working with Aboriginal governments, we’re working with the individual health authorities, we’re working with elders and non-government organizations, communities, as well as cancer survivors. This isn’t just breast cancer. This is a number of the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member indicated earlier, the position is no longer called a breast cancer patient navigator or a cancer patient navigator. The new one is, actually, the cancer care coordinator, which still has a key patient advocate role and we are currently trying to fill that position. We are going through some internal recruitment at Stanton to find somebody to take on that role. So we are recruiting as we speak. Thank you.

Once again, I will pass that information along or that question along to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment and I will get a more fulsome response. At the same time, all residents of the Northwest Territories are able to receive the services we provide, which includes counselling, mental health and addictions services. We do have a number of contracts with different providers for individuals who have substance abuse challenges. Those services, all services, all services that are available in the Northwest Territories are available to all residents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we disclosed in the previous contract how much we had contracted for the services for the previous day shelter. The information of what we are spending on this day shelter is out and available, but as we move on, we would be happy to provide the Member with actual costs at the end of each fiscal year, as well as committee. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The day shelter at this point in time is providing some basic services, basically a warm place for people to go as well as some referral functions. We had been talking with the provider about having more opportunities for people to come into that particular facility and offer referrals and other services. The NWT Disabilities Council intends to expand their services to include a process for more referrals and management of the day shelter. They also intend to have some adult service workers scheduled for regular office hours come in and visit as well as some individuals from public health to...

Thank you. The $500,000 is part of the base, so it will be available every year. It’s application-based. So we are open to any application that comes in. The catch is the applications have to fall clearly within one of the five pillars identified within the framework to improve the lives of people throughout the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you. That wasn’t actually one of the agenda items on the last Health Minister’s meetings that was in Banff earlier this summer, but it’s certainly an initiative and certainly an important topic, and I’d be happy to raise it with my territorial counterparts to see if we can get a little bit of a northern wave on this one. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Minister’s statement today I spoke about the Med-Response program, and I’m very pleased to have the team that are working on this innovative and exciting project in the House today. I’d like to take this opportunity to recognize them and thank them all for their efforts. First, David Keselman, director of ambulatory care and medical affairs at Stanton; Janie Neudorf, the territorial emergency medical supervisor with Med-Response. We have a couple of emergency medical coordinators: Justin Davi, who is an RN; Carolyn Ridgley, who is an RN; and Vladislav Portnick...

Thank you. In the action plan, the territorial response for the framework, there was some money identified by the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to put towards food initiatives. I will get the specifics and share that with the Member, but I will also point out that in the $500,000 that we allocated a number of the initiatives that we did support were based on food security. We had a healthy living application that was submitted, we had Growing Gameti’s Wellness that was supported, which actually supported the largest community garden outside of regional centres, there’s a...