Julie Green

Okay, first of all, this program is being evaluated because it was first introduced in 2018 and the rollout finished last year so it's time now to revisit its strengths and areas that require improvement. That's the reason that it's being evaluated.

What we committed to doing was changing things leading into the next school year as we found issues and ways to address them. So, for example, there's long been discussion about the threshold of education for the CYCCs being too high and excluding people who may have good cultural connections but not the same level of education required. So a second...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, the CYCC program has a steering committee that includes all of the health authorities, including the Tlicho Community Services Agency. So I certainly think that there would be a possibility for the Tlicho Community Services Agency to raise issues in that forum. There's also a board of the TCSA who could be involved in this area of advocating for services for its students. So I think there are a number of ways.

There are big ways too, like the bilaterals, which I attend and answer questions directly to the Tlicho government. There's the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to start by saying the CYCC program has a steering committee, and the Tlicho Community Services Agency sits on that steering committee. So it's not like there's a big huge gap between the Tlicho Community Services Agency and the program itself.

That said, there is antiracism and cultural safety training offered, 14 different sessions between February of this year and March of next year. Of course, the Living Well Together curriculum is mandatory for all GNWT staff. So there are several important ways that we impress on new hires the importance of...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm not sure what exactly is possible. But I believe that it's important to provide accountability to the public for both our spending and our debts. And so I will work with the department to develop some kind of public reporting. I can't say right now whether that will be online or not. But I will work towards public accountability on this public reporting. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thanks to the Member for the question. The office is now fully staffed. For a while there was an issue with staffing in the office so that they could do their work but that is not an issue at this point.

The basic issue is that it's like playing whackamole in the Department of Health and Social Services. When we finish paying for one thing, another thing needs funding. And this has really become more acute in the time that I've been Minister of Health and Social Services. There are more calls for more services to be covered by our health system than ever before...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to note that dental hygienists are really on the frontline of oral health and prevention of decay, and they play a vital role in our healthcare system. They are currently, as the Member said, regulated under the Dental Auxiliaries Act. To date, Mr. Speaker, we haven't heard anything from the hygienists about wanting to be regulated under the Health and Social Services Professions Act. If they were to contact us, that would certainly assist us in prioritizing their request for change. Thank you.

Yes, thank you. I understand the Member's point. There's a very high rate of vacancies among nurses in the Tlicho region. So if I was giving a young person advice in the Tlicho region, I would suggest that they take a look at all the different healthcare professions to see if they could find one there that would meet their needs and that would then keep them in their community. And the same could be said for the social work program, which I was delighted to hear will be started up again next year. We would like to hire people who are trained locally to do these jobs. Where it's possible to...

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I just note that the supplementary health benefits of the budget is the place where the medical travel budget is located. Medical travel is for people who are referred south for service. That is the purpose of it. So if you're unable to obtain health care in the Northwest Territories, medical travel will get you to the south to get that care. I the healthcare cards are there is one kind of card for every NWT resident. I am not sure what the Member is referring to in saying that there are different cards f or people in different levels of government. I'm not sure...

Yes, thank you. The supported living review had 33 recommendations, and 12 of those were ones that we could begin work on without additional funding. So for the remaining 21 recommendations, we would need to develop them for the next business plan in order to obtain funding to implement them. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to start by saying that we report a number of indicators, health indicators, health outcomes, spending, wait times to the Canadian Institute for Health Information. And it maintains an excellent website which allows you to go into different levels of detail around the data that is NWTspecific. In terms of global wait times, I'll ask the deputy minister if she has that.