Julie Green

Thank you, Madam Chair. For more than 10 years in the time that I've been here and the time that I worked with the YWCA, there have been repeated calls to revamp the Income Assistance Program, which is well known to be onerous to comply with if you're a client and onerous to deliver if you're staff. One of the great things about COVID is that it jump-started the reform of the Income Assistance Program in ways that are very helpful to clients by giving them additional money and less paperwork to complete. This has been a change that's been very well received and is very important to me...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The NWT Seniors' Society has requested this government and the previous government create an NWT seniors' strategy for a number of reasons. I am going to recap some of them today. The first is that the existing strategic framework, called "Our Elders, Our Communities," was published in 2014, and much has changed in that time. It also is a strategy that is specific to Health and Social Services. It doesn't address issues such as housing, transportation, social inclusion, and so on. While this is a good strategy in and of itself, it's not current to our needs at the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. WHEREAS the population of elders in the Northwest Territories is the fastest growing sector of the population;

AND WHEREAS this population is expected to increase by 56 percent to 9,400 people in the next 15 years;

AND WHEREAS 40 percent of seniors and elders have income of less than $25,000 per year and thus live in poverty;

AND WHEREAS this 19th Assembly agreed in its mandate to enable seniors and elders to age in place with dignity;

AND WHEREAS there is a need for a whole of government approach to provide and co-ordinate services and programs that respond to the complex...

Thank you to the Minister for that. This recommendation was aimed at government to set up a centralized data reporting system. Another of the recommendations was to research the need for legislation which would protect older adults from abuse. Is this something that is anywhere on the government's radar?

Thank you, Madam Chair. This was an issue that I certainly heard a lot about during the lockdown. As Members are aware, some GNWT staff have worked right through the pandemic. They have worked very hard to implement the different measures that keep us safe. Other people went home and there has been some uncertainty about how productive that time has been for them. In order to provide some accountability and consistency, this policy is a key piece of the puzzle. It will then tell not only the employees but also the public what is expected from someone who's working at home. I think there is a...

My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. In my statement today, I mentioned there is a strategic plan to create safer communities for older adults. This wasn't a government strategy, but government was at the table along with other stakeholders from the seniors community. My question for the Minister is: are the strategy's recommendations still on the government's radar?

Thank you, Madam Chair. There have been some real challenges in communication during this pandemic. Of course, it is our very first pandemic and I'd like to think that there have been some learning along the way to how to communicate more effectively with people, not only in the ways that my colleagues have mentioned, but also by considering that not everybody is using social media or electronic means of gaining information. They were, to some extent, really left in the dark. I'm speaking here really of two groups of people. One is seniors who are not computer users. The other are vulnerable...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Most of us love and respect the elders in our lives, yet abuse of this growing population is a problem all across the country. The detail of the problem is documented by Statistics Canada. NWT has the second highest rate of elder abuse in the country, and that rate is rising.

What is "abuse" in this context? The World Health Organization says it's a single or repeated act, or the opposite, a lack of appropriate action, which causes harm and distress to an older person, occurring within any relationship where there is an expectation of trust. It's a sad fact that all...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to say how important this program is to low wage workers. Eighteen dollars an hour is not a living wage here in Yellowknife, so then, it's likely not to be a living wage anywhere else in the Northwest Territories. What this federal program enables the Government of the Northwest Territories to offer is wages that are closer to the living wage threshold, and thus, families and workers have a chance to live above the poverty line. I know from the questions that my colleague asked yesterday that there has been some uptake in this program. More uptake could be...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that most of us are aware that the best thing that we can do for our children is have them in licensed childcare. It promotes their personal development and their school readiness. It also allows, usually mothers, but in some cases, fathers, to return to the workforce and continue to support their families and have the personal fulfillment of work. This is really a critical service that we offer the population of the Northwest Territories. Every dollar that is spent on children under five is a savings for expenses further down the road because it gives them the...