Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with respect to the incident in Nahanni Butte, the med response clinical lead and emergency physician performed secondary assessments and spoke with all of the patients over the phone and was able to get a sense of their injuries, their mobility, the details of the crash, as well as their medical histories. Med response was aware that there were pilots and other aircraft on the ground in Nahanni Butte, and that they were ready and willing to fly patients to Fort Simpson, but advised against the load-and-go scenario, if you wish, suggesting that a medevac...

The Government of the Northwest Territories is taking a whole-of-government approach when it comes to addressing poverty. Housing is doing an important thing. Income support is doing important things, as the Member highlighted within her Member's statement. ITI is doing important things. ENR. The government is working to create and support community gardens in every community in the Northwest Territories. The anti-poverty fund has also put money into different food programs throughout the Northwest Territories.

The federal government, obviously, has a role to play. We're hoping to see some...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it is a federal government strategy, so I can't say exactly how many people the federal government strategy might move out of poverty, but I can talk a little bit about the work that we are doing with the federal government.

As the Member has already indicated, the federal government's poverty reduction strategy sets out an official measure of poverty for Canada using the market basket measure. They are actually going to change it and call it "Canada's official poverty line." The market basket measure is a measure, as the Member, I'm certain, is aware...

On August 22nd, a counsellor with the GNWT Family Assistance Program, the FAP, travelled to the community of Fort Simpson and provided additional counselling services to the region. She was available to meet with staff through the region, including Nahanni Butte via phone, via telehealth, and in person for those individuals who were in the community as needed. If community members still required counselling supports, they were encouraged to reach out to the Fort Liard counselling team as well.

The GNWT staff are also eligible for the Employee Family Assistance Program services for additional...

The plane landed in Nahanni Butte at 5:57 p.m., at which point they would have had to assess patients, make sure that they were stable for air transport, make sure that it was safe to do so. That can, depending on the severity of the injuries, take a little bit of time. They would also have to transport the individuals from the health centre where they are being treated to the airplane.

I don't know the exact number of minutes or seconds it took for them to get from there to taking off, wheels up, but I will ask the department to get me that information. I will certainly share it with the...

I'm happy to share the finding. I would have to look at the report to make sure that there is no compromising information with respect to identifying individuals. We want to make sure that we're protecting our patients' rights as well our staff's rights to privacy, but I want the information out there; I want everybody to know it as far as what we learned and what we can improve. However, it may not include specific details as to who, what, when, and why. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the desire of the community to help, I appreciate the desire of the paramedic to help, and had we been doing ground transportation, it would have been absolutely reasonable to do that, but we weren't doing ground transportation, Mr. Speaker. This was an air evacuation, and as a result, you need individuals who understand the implications of transporting a patient in the air. There are significant additional risks for putting someone in an airplane and transporting them.

The med response was engaged. They were aware of who was available, but for the safety of the clients, the safety...

I hate to inform the Member that I'm not new to this file, and I have been working on addressing poverty here in the Northwest Territories with partners from across the territory for a number of years. We did bring forward an NWT framework for addressing poverty in the Northwest Territories where there are multiple partners working to address these problems. The GNWT has also taken action, and I highlighted some of the things we're doing around food security here already.

On top of that, we also have the Anti-Poverty Fund, which is an application-based program. We have $1 million in that fund...

In the strategy, the federal government is encouraging provinces and territories to live up to the principles of their plan by doing different actions and activities in the Northwest Territories. These actually, I think, in many ways are similar to the territorial Anti-Poverty Action Plan, as it summarizes existing programs and funding commitments across the government, as well as with our partners throughout the Northwest Territories.

Once again, I am not the right person to talk about the federal plan. I am looking forward to seeing the presentation and working with our partners from across...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as a government we have committed to putting the principles of reconciliation in action and to transform the way that we deliver programs and services to be more culturally informed and respectful throughout our mandate. Today I would like to update colleagues and the public on efforts that we have been adopting within our Health and Social Services system to put these principles into action to better serve our residents.

Embedding the concept of cultural safety into our Health and Social Services system has been one of our main areas of focus. Cultural...