Jane Groenewegen

I call Committee of the Whole to order. The Speaker has listed off the items that are in Committee of the Whole today. What is the wish of the committee today? Mr. Menicoche.

I think there are stories to be told. As I mentioned in my Member’s statement, I think that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission went a long ways towards the healing that comes from people being able to talk about their issues. So while I applaud the Minister for forming this group and sending them out, I think we need to talk to the people who can share the most with us, and I think that is the people affected every day by the addictions in the Northwest Territories.

When does the Minister expect to have results from the work of this commission? Is there still time to integrate this kind of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement today, I have some questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services.

Some days I talk about what the Northwest Territories would look like without drugs and alcohol. That’s an exercise that I’d like to use as a bit of a visioning exercise.

We have many, many healthy people in the Northwest Territories and that’s something to celebrate and something I’m very happy about. But you know that political statement that’s always said no one left behind? There’s a lot of people who are living in bondage today to drugs and alcohol, who...

Thank you, committee. We will move on to page 3-17, Human Resources, activity summary, Human Resource Strategy and Policy, operations expenditure summary, $6.774 million. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. We are on page 3-13, Human Resources, activity summary, directorate, operations expenditure summary, $625,000.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not one that’s normally in favour of a lot of studies and reviews, but in this case, I would support that.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. I am going to use the Chair’s prerogative to allow Mr. Bromley a very, very short, I don’t know what it is, rebuttal/comment. Mr. Bromley.

That is not the answer I was hoping for. There is no place for these folks to go if they vacate the building. We can’t wait until after the building is vacated and then start doing an assessment of whether or not it could be used as a long-term care facility. There are no other 10 long-term care beds in Hay River and we certainly don’t want to be shipping our people out of Hay River to other communities. We know that the years pass quickly in this place and the new facility will be open, it will be upon us. If we’re going to look at this as an option, this assessment would need to start to...

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Next on the list for general comments I have Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to follow up on the topic raised by my colleague for Hay River North. It is a very important and very pressing issue at this time.

The good news is we’re all living longer. The bad news is this government has to find the capital to deal with providing long-term and extended stay care beds for our aging population.

This is a fact, that there are 10 long-term care beds in the existing Hay River hospital. Another fact is that the new health centre does not anticipate having any long-term care beds. So there is a timeline that’s fast coming upon us. The new...