Julie Green

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member raises a good point. We've had a couple of programs close recently that occupied the Territorial Treatment Centre in Yellowknife and the Trailcross Treatment Centre in Fort Smith. So we are aware that there is some surplus infrastructure. I think the process is to first of all identify the programming we want in the surplus infrastructure and then see whether it's appropriate for use. Some of the infrastructure that the Member has mentioned is very old and would not be up to code whereas other buildings would be ready for occupancy in short...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm certainly willing to make that commitment to meet with the nurses association and see if there is anything that we can assist them to do to speed up the licensing. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased that we're joined today by Captain Jason Brinson of the Salvation Army in Yellowknife, where they provide invaluable services to the vulnerable population in food hampers all the way through to withdrawal management and sheltering. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have an answer to that question. I'll have to take it on notice.

Yes, thank you. The issue of selfreferral is a little bit problematic because it doesn't give the counsellor or other support workers the ability to continue connecting with that person before treatment, after treatment, and making sure that they are accessing the resources that are available to them. We have contracts at this point with five facilities. So if people use our referral process to one of those five centres, then the costs are covered. Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last month, the Department of Health and Social Services asked for Indigenous addictionsbased treatment facilities to provide proposals for Indigenous treatment for NWT residents or addictions treatment with an Indigenous lens for NWT residents. That competition, or that request for proposal closed on Friday. And it's my understanding that procurement shared services are now evaluating those proposals. The goal that the department set out with was to have the new service provider in place by April 1st. Thank you.

Yes, thank you. I have to say that I personally, and the department as well, recognizes the need for stability and support in the NGO sector and the value of the services they provide to our communities. So we are certainly open to looking first at more compensation and secondly multiyear agreements. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question. I don't think there is a family in the whole of Canada that has not had some experience with addictions and the chaos that it causes, and I'm no exception.

With respect to the transitional housing initiative, we issued an expression of interest in December of 2021, so just over a year ago, to ask community organizations if they would like to develop a model for transitional housing for people coming from treatment centres. We got four communities that were interested, including Fort Good Hope, Inuvik, and Yellowknife. We also...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question. So the licensing of nurses of all kinds is handled by the Registered Nurses Association of the NWT and Nunavut. So they're the ones who process the registration application. And the application does require proof of credentials, prior work sites, hours worked, and so on and so forth. That means that often they have to apply to the licensing authority where they were previously employed for paperwork. And as the Member said in his statement, in the case of Ontario it took a couple of months to get that lined up. So I don't...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a better description of these positions is adult social workers, adult services social workers. So my understanding is that the operational situation for the two when they are hired is to have one available at the health centre and one who is doing outreach. Thank you.