Glen Abernethy

Absolutely, Mr. Speaker. I enjoy working with the committee. I look forward to their feedback and input, and I think a letter from the committee would be helpful in helping to move that initiative forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I indicated in my previous responses, we do have some new positions that have been put in place to do this type of analysis and put the policies around that. I can't say for certain exactly what those processes are today. Once again, I will get that information for the committee and the Member.

Mr. Speaker, I had an opportunity to travel with members of the standing committee as they toured different facilities in southern Canada. I think we had a lot of good discussion. I think we learned an awful lot from that experience. As far as setting a priority for the next action plan, I do want to be cautious. I don't want to pre-suppose what's going to be in that document. We still have some work to do. We still have feedback coming from committee. I think all that is going to be incredibly important to help us have an informed discussion and set our priorities moving forward. We do know...

Mr. Speaker, we heard clearly from many people across the Northwest Territories that on-the-land and traditional healing is incredibly important to them, and it is certainly, for many people, part of the process that they are going to go through as they proceed down their healing journey. There are a lot of questions about on-the-land healing programs. There really hasn't been an evaluation mechanism, but we have worked with our Indigenous partners here, in the Northwest Territories, to start the development of an evaluation framework so that we can see and try to assess some of the value.

Obvi...

The situation in Hay River and Inuvik were different. As we roll out the Health Information Act, we get out and train. Also, as we move forward with the single authority, what is clear is that, in the past, not all authorities have applied rules as consistently or the same as others. Having a single authority has really given us an opportunity to make sure that our rules and our procedures and our territorial legislations be applied consistently.

The Hay River situation, as I said, was slightly different than the Inuvik situation. The data that was in question wasn't the same type of data. The...

We have the territorial risk manager, as I have indicated. We also have a territorial health information director or manager. At a local level, all employees are in fact custodians and have a responsibility under the Health Information Act. Ultimately, in every one of our regional offices, the COOs have the responsibility to ensure that all of their staff are properly trained and have a clear understanding of their obligations under the Health Information Act.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document entitled “2017 Annual Report Public Utilities Board of the Northwest Territories." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, there's a number of things that are going on. In the last budget cycle, we had some additional dollars approved to create some more homecare positions across the Northwest Territories. Eleven positions were created, and a number of them were in small communities throughout the Northwest Territories. Most of them are filled. There are still a couple that we are out recruiting for.

At the same time, I committed to doing a homecare review of the entire Northwest Territories to assess the level of care that is provided in all communities, all regions, all areas of the Northwest...

Many, many years ago, the provinces came together under the direction of the Council of the Federation to form the Pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance to help control the high cost of drugs across this country. They have worked hard to identify and arrange relationships for group purchasing that has actually helped bring down the costs of many drugs, in particular many of the non-generics in this country. Since the last federal election, the federal government has joined on to the Pan-Canadian Pharmaceutical Alliance, which I think was an incredibly important step, as they have the ability to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am a big supporter of a national pharmacare plan here, in Canada. We are the only first-world nation that has publiclyfunded medicare that does not have publicly funded pharmacare. As a country, I think we need to make significant progress in that area.

At a national level, I would say that one of the largest champions of pharmacare is Dr. Eric Hoskins, who is actually the Minister of Health in the Province of Ontario. He has been pushing Ontario and pushing Ministers from across this country to work together to lobby and encourage the federal government...