Julie Green

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'm going to need to get back to the Member with details of when those visits happened by the COO of the Yellowknife region to the community of Fort Resolution. I know they happened in May, but I can't be more specific than that.

And I would also like to say that with respect to meeting Arthur Beck and Chief Balsillie, I haven't met Chief Balsillie. I have met Arthur Beck at various bilaterals that we've had. Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I've heard the comments of the Member, and I will take them into account. Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I certainly welcome the Member for Kam Lake to share specific cases with me to follow up. In terms of selfharm and suicidal ideation, information provided to the Member previously reveals that the number of selfharm or suicidal ideation incidents has, in fact, been developing over the years since 20162017, which is the first year in this fiveyear chart. Likewise, the number of people seeking counselling because of suicidal ideation, that is youth seeking counselling, has gone down as well.

That doesn't mean that there isn't a problem. There clearly is a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is a situation where the health centre simply isn't big enough to hold all the staff. I said two social workers. There's actually three social workers, a social work supervisor, and two and a half healthy family workers as well as one family preservation worker. So that's a total of 6.5 fulltime equivalent positions providing social services in Fort Providence, and there simply isn't enough room in the health centre. And so they are going to move that staff group into another location. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, this act has been in force for 25 years. And so child protection workers, social workers, have been using this legislation for 25 years. So it's not new.

In the time that I've been Minister and we've started this review of the Child and Family Services Act, I've been in frequent contact with Indigenous governments to ask for their feedback on what they would want to change in this act since we have an opportunity to make changes in this Assembly.

So I'm not sure what the Member has in mind by "making parents aware." If he has a specific case...

Please.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to say we have lots of capacity. There are two fulltime mental health and addictions counsellors, one fulltime child and youth care counsellor, one parttime practicum student, two community wellness workers, a clinic supervisor for CYCC, and a manager who also sees clients. Two additional mental health counsellors are arriving in Hay River from Fort Smith to facilitate community debriefings that are planned for later this week. We also, through HRSSA's communities counselling service, they attend the Soaring Eagle Friendship Centre sharing...

Good afternoon, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when I became Minister of Health and Social Services in August 2020, I had the opportunity to add two personal priorities to the Premier’s mandate letter for me. One of the two was to reduce the toll of substance abuse on the residents of the Northwest Territories by leading a wholeofgovernment interdepartmental approach to developing evidencebased policies and programs and develop a robust addictions treatment aftercare regime, including a territorial alcohol strategy.

Mr. Speaker, I chose this priority for a couple of reasons. The first is that I am...

For.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the points that are being made today. It is a priority of the health system to ensure that people have equitable access to safe and effective healthcare. I know that isn't the case all the time. But "all the time" is certainly what we are striving for.

It's important to say that we are facing an unprecedented crisis of staffing in our healthcare system. We have vacancies across the board. We have, coming out on Friday, our health human resources plan, which will discuss some of the medium and longterm initiatives that we plan to take to...