Julie Green

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Spruce Bough, the Yellowknife Women's Society does some great programming at the Spruce Bough. I've visited there myself and been part of their program in the common room where they support one another in their healing journey, and it's very impressive. And, of course, as the Minister I want this program to continue.

What I can say is that the department is working with the Yellowknife Women's Society with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment and also with the NWT Housing Corporation, and there are several tasks that need to be done...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, transportation is an issue in every community, including Yellowknife. Getting seniors to program sites, health sites, shopping, and so on is an issue all around. This is not something that the department has taken on but it's something that I can inquire about. The department provides the individual support. So if somebody needs a walker, for example, then the department would assist them in obtaining that but not necessarily a ride to the health centre. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm not sure when these six positions will be filled or if they've already been filled so I'll have to come back to the Member with that information. Thank you.

Yes, thank you. I don't know what's involved in commissioning but there is a sixmonth period allocated for it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Range Lake, that Bill 31, An Act to amend the Pharmacy Act be read for the second time.

This bill amends the Pharmacy Act to add a definition of "unscheduled substance"; allow a person to sell an unscheduled substance from any retail outlet if certain conditions are met; require a person who sells a prescribed unscheduled substance by retail, or who supplies or distributes such a substance, to meet certain conditions when selling, supplying, or distributing the substance; establish regulation making authorities...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, to take a step back from that question, the department first needs to learn what services are going to be provided. So in the last fiscal year, the department funded the Northern Birth Work Collective to create an Indigenous doula and birth work training program. And we see a lot of potential in this, and we're looking forward to the results of this training and development. And once that's in place, then the department will be in a better situation to learn what the service model is, how communities are going to access the services, and then make an...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for the question. In February 2019, the Department funded an Indigenous doula maternal support training session that had a number of Indigenous governments as well as the Health and Social Services Authority involved, with a total of 16 participants. The key findings from the participants from this pilot were, first, participants want to support Indigenous women and their families to reclaim their identity, their health, and exercise greater control over their own childbirth and parenting experiences.

Second, doulas and birth work can contribute to the healing...

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Member's frustration but what we learned in Yellowknife in the month of May is that everything can change overnight, where one case at a school ultimately became 71 cases with a thousand contacts and 43 households in isolation. The key thing there was we had a large unvaccinated group who are not eligible for vaccines because of their age, and we had 40 percent of the people there, the youth, were asymptomatic. So they didn't know they had COVID. They had no symptoms of it. And another  something like 20 percent had only one symptom...

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's a process laid out in the Public Health Act. The CPHO is an independent health official, a medical doctor. That person evaluates the situation and determines the risk of the disease to the public. That person then creates public health orders that would mitigate that risk. And that advice comes to me, and I declare a state of emergency to give force to the orders that the Chief Public Health Officer has made. So I am taking advice from the Chief Public Health Officer who is looking at the technical risk assessments, which I do not have a level...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm not aware of the same kind of adverse effects with the Pfizer vaccine as there have been with the AstraZeneca vaccine. They are different kinds of vaccines. And I don't know a lot about how they're different. I just can tell you that they are apples and oranges in terms of vaccines.

But what I can say is that we are very interested in going back to communities and providing more vaccinations. Just as the Member said, this is what we hoped, that people would see that those who got vaccinated did great, they have a lot more freedom, they can isolate for...