Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just for some clarity, there is a reference to this, in this motion, to $468,000 which I believe is the $468,000 that was identified in 8-39. Just for clarity purpose, the dollars that are there came from the federal government, and not the entire $468,000 were actually NWT dollars.

We had, out of that $498,000, when you combine the $468,000 and the $30,000 the year before, we had $198,000 of that and then $50,000 of that available to the Northwest Territories. Of that amount, $144,000 had to go to Nunavut and $105,000 had to go to the Yukon. One of the reasons the federal...

I appreciate the Member’s passion for wellness courts and it’s something that I obviously support as well. But at the end of the day, a wellness court is dependent on the support of the judiciary, so we obviously have to make sure that the judiciary are comfortable with the programs and services that we provide.

There is significant money going into the wellness court in ’14-15. Eight hundred seven thousand dollars has been identified within the Department of Justice budget. It is in the Department of Justice budget but it is a collaborative effort and it’s taking the activities and the work of...

I agree with everything the Member has just said with respect to the provision of services and how consistency is certainly the more preferred approach. We continue to have challenges hiring health professionals in the Northwest Territories, especially in some of the smaller communities. We are doing better in some areas than others, but we are still having challenges. This is true for mental health and addictions counsellors as well as community health nurses. I don’t have the exact status of Fort Liard, but I’d be happy to get that for the Member and share that with the Member.

As we move...

I have already committed to doing that and I agree with what the Member says, we clearly need to have a plan.

One of the things that we do know is that every individual is different and every individual has different needs and expectations. That’s why one of the reasons we put in a variety of different treatment options for individuals from on-the land programs and hopefully we’ll be moving forward and have some success with mobile treatment options as well as facilities. The bottom line is supports will vary depending on the client’s individual needs and arrangement that have been made with that client prior to going down for treatment. So, individually we can have custom plans to have regular...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Water quality tests are required under the Water Supply System Regulations and the chief public health officer requires that the following water quality testing for treated water, so we do test drinking water on a regular basis. As far as public waters, we work with I believe it’s MACA who has the lead on sampling rivers and lakes. ENR. Sorry, ENR has the lead on that.

In my response to some of the opening comments I talked a little bit about the midwifery services. We are doing a minor renovation to the existing Hay River Health and Social Services Authority, which we believe will allow us to move forward with the Midwifery Program sooner than anticipated. We had some limitations given that the current facility doesn’t meet the needs, and we are expecting the new facility to meet the needs, but we’ve now got a coordinator hired in the department who is doing the work for us, so we’re actually anticipating we’re going to be moving forward more quickly with...

The two departments have been working together. The new facilities have been designed so there’s a day program room area where different programs can be delivered in the communities where those independent or assisted living homes are going to be located. As those programs roll out, authorities will work with the communities to make sure that our staff are able to provide the services and if it means increased staff, we’ll certainly have to have those discussions at that time.

We’re just trying to dig the specific details out of the binder. We will provide the specific details to the Member so that they have a better accounting, but by way of example, at Stanton most of the positions are located in Yellowknife and a significant number of those or a couple of those are accounted for through the Med-Response unit that we’re putting in as well as some other health professionals. Within Yellowknife Health and Social Services, the increase is about 13 and those are EMR. I’ll go to Director Mathison because I don’t understand.

We’re not sure what the federal government is going to call this $70 million, but THSSI, as we know it, no longer exists. They have given us some broad statements that we were able to get out of their budget statement about what these dollars are intended for, but it doesn’t seem to directly correlate to things THSSI funding in the past. It may, some of it might, but at this point in time we’re not 100 percent sure. When we know and we’re in a position to pursue those dollars, we will certainly be having discussions with committee. I can say they have been very clear up front that no money...