Julie Green

Thank you to the Minister for that response. The strategy included three recommendations directed to government. The first is to implement a centralized data reporting system for all cases of abuse of older adults in the NWT. Is there such a data reporting system in place at this time?

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is arguably the most important recommendation in all of these reports. It's certainly the area that I've heard the most about. Members here have talked about encountering people who are visitors to the NWT who didn't seem to be self-isolated. We've heard from people who filed self-isolation plans and there was no follow-up. We've heard about communities putting up check stops in order to strengthen their own response to who is coming into their communities. This has been such a huge area of confusion and, to some extent, frustration. If we had a second wave right...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my statement, I mentioned that 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 various stakeholders for the seniors community. Are the strategy's recommendations still on the government's radar? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to recap the rationale for this recommendation. From the report itself, it says: "The authority of the GNWT to declare a public health emergency pursuant to the Public Health Act and a territorial state of emergency under the Emergency Management Act underlined a potential legislative void in that it did not expressly provide the Premier with authority to coordinate and manage the overall response."

As the public is no doubt aware, the Public Health Act previously has been used for things like whooping cough and sexually transmitted disease, and the Emergency...

Thank you, Madam Chair. When we reviewed this work, we found that there were two issues for many families. One was that they didn't have the tools to participate in the technology which are things like pads and laptops and so on. The other end of the problem was having the infrastructure where they could have the bandwidth to participate in long-distance learnings, and that's an issue that has been addressed by my colleagues from the Standing Committee on Economic Development and the Environment. They have talked about the need to complete the infrastructure necessary to make broadband...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I've heard very good things from my constituents about the revamp to the Transitional Rent Supplement Program. They've had positive interactions with Housing Corporation staff, and they're grateful for the support to make their housing more affordable. I think the biggest challenge here is finding some bridging that will go from the end of August, when the current program is expected to expire, until the end of March next year, when the Canadian Housing Benefit will be introduced. I want to commend the Housing Corporation for good work on this and ask them to look...

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, I appreciate the Minister pulling this information together. We learned sometime recently that 10 percent of the Slave Geological Province contracts have actually gone to northern contractors. I'm interested to know what it looks like for the Mount Gaudet access road and for the Mackenzie Valley Highway environmental assessment. I would appreciate receiving that information. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Minister for that answer. When constituents ask me questions about whether their mother can come to visit or whether they can have their partner relocate here, I usually say to them, "You should call 811 or email Protect NWT," but what I'm hearing is that it can take days, even weeks, to get an answer to their questions. They're looking for a more immediate response. My question to the Minister is whether Protect NWT needs more staff in order to provide a tighter turn-around to residents of the NWT for their questions about who is and isn't allowed in...