Sandy Lee

Mr. Speaker, all of the projects that we work on with respect to homelessness or housing issues or municipal downtown issues we do in partnership with the municipal governments. I have great faith in the ability and capacity of the City of Yellowknife to address these issues. I’m aware of lots of community groups that are working on that, so I’m happy to work with them. But I do believe that this is an issue that should be spearheaded by the municipal government and the community groups, and I think the leadership should be left there. If there are any proposals that the government should look...

Planning is ready, and we have the presentation material. Any time the Members would like to have it, we’ll be happy to provide it.

I’m happy to advise the Members that the new plans, which are a lot more affordable and workable, are being shared by the public administrator with the employees. It would involve short term measures of moving admin offices out of Stanton, which will create a lot more space. We are doing work in the emergency facility there to deal with confidentiality and privacy issues. Building of the dementia centre will address the crowdedness in extended care. And there’s new work being done in the consolidated clinic that will deal with primary care services.

There’s a lot in the mix that would impact...

Mr. Speaker. Once again my information is that the doctors have been writing on the form that they fill out to get medication and palliative care pharmaceuticals that the doctor prescribes to patients…. They have been notified to put palliative care on the application. Green Shield knows about it, and it’s been running very smoothly. Maybe the pharmacist dispensed the drugs and was not aware of it, so I will make sure that the pharmacists are made aware of that. If a Member knows of any difficulties that any patient in palliative care is experiencing, I would like to know about that too. Thank...

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Member’s question. Following up on the Member’s recommendation, we have implemented that. We have a process now where as long as the doctor says in the application for medication to Green Shield or whoever is administrating our health insurance that it’s palliative care, Green Shield has been processing the documents on a 24-hour turnaround basis. By all accounts, I understand that it’s working out really well. It was in practice almost within a month of the Member asking for this to be implemented.

Mr. Speaker, there is no plan to establish a seniors’ secretariat, because within the fiscal environment that we are working on, we are not able to look at expanding government bureaucracy. Even if there were a secretariat, whoever is working there would have to work with departments across the government, because seniors are looked after by Health and Social Services, by Income Security, by Housing, and in many, many different areas.

I think the point, the more important thing, is that we work together, and the Minister responsible for Seniors does do that. We work closely with the NWT Seniors...

Mr. Speaker, there is not a plan to set up a secretariat for seniors separately. However, we have a Minister responsible for Seniors who worked with the NWT Seniors’ Society and other seniors in the territory to address the seniors’ issues they advocate for on behalf of the seniors in the Territories.

Mr. Speaker, let me say it again. We have CHRs that we pay for every day. They work for us. They’re all over the communities. Part of their job is to distribute car seats, and we have distributed 125 car seats. They teach the parents how to use them. All I’m saying is that we are already doing that. We will continue to do that, and we don’t need to find extra funding for that.

Now, I’m just answering this issue that I think has come to the attention of the Member as well. We have had a proposal from a lady in Yellowknife who would like $30,000 to deliver this program. We e-mailed her back and...

Mr. Speaker, I’m sure the Member is as aware as anyone else here that we need to be responsible with our dollars. We should be doing as much as possible within the budget we have, which is certainly the challenge that Health has.

When he asks why we are not providing funding…. Yes, we did not agree to fund a $30,000 proposal to have these two programs in Inuvik and Yellowknife, but that doesn’t mean that this program is not being delivered. What I said is that the community health reps in all of our regions are already engaged in working with parents with infants on how to use their car seats...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, that Bill 10, An Act to Amend the Pharmacy Act, be read for the third time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.