Julie Green

Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for the question. The territorial health investment fund has not yet been renewed for the 20232024 fiscal year. So it's not included in this budget. But in the previous fiscal year, we allocated $5 million of that fund towards the cost of travel, medical travel.

We provide the financial management board with semiannual reports about the work of the sustainability office, and we are available to come and brief committee confidentially on that work on request.

Yes, thank you. This budget is the budget for the Department of Health and Social Services. It's not the budget for NTHSSA. They develop their own budget and report it in their annual report. So we don't have line items in here that are specific to a region such as Fort Smith. Thank you.

Yes, thank you. I think it really depends on what the person needs. So some people need a personal support worker maybe to help them go shopping, sweep their floor, and do that kind of thing. And other people need nursing care. So they need dressings changed and medication dispensed and so on. So I think it depends on what the needs of the client are. And we have had the paid family caregiver program running for a couple of years, and it I think it's running again next year. And it's running in Tuktoyaktuk. So that would give you an idea of what kind of services are available in that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Health and Social Services is currently negotiating with Indigenous Services Canada for the provision of services that they fund and we administer. The current agreement expires at the end of this month. So we hope to report soon that there are changes coming. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll ask the director of finance to answer, please.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you for the question. So the following areas are being reviewed right now. Medical travel, escort criteria, and that's one where I get a lot of questions. The exceptions policy which is where the policy can be varied to include people who don't fit into the other criteria. We are reviewing the per diem rates for people who aren't staying at the boarding facility. So right now the accommodation per diem is $50, which is obviously not adequate for a hotel. We also want to establish a longterm medical travel policy. This is for people, for example, who are...

Yes, thank you. The money is offered to the GNWT as the public health provider. That is to say the public supplier of health care in the Northwest Territories. There has been some discussion about a health equity fund for Indigenous people, but the parameters of that have not been set. And I'm not sure if they would apply to the case that the Member is asking about. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll ask the deputy minister to answer that.

Yes, thank you. I think that some of this is communities not seeing how this fits into the programming that they want to offer, and that's one of the reasons that the Indigenous governments asked for block funding so that they could have more money to devote to their priorities and that would include money from the mental wellness and addictions recovery program. Most of these programs end up with residual money. So the point of the block funding is to make sure that all the money goes out the door. If all of that money disappears very quickly, then we would be in a position to justify...