Sandy Lee

Charges of price fixing or gouging or coercion are very serious. I don’t have any evidence to prove that right now, but I am willing to see what mechanisms we have in place to look into that and what options are available to the government and work with whatever agencies are out there to see if we could address that question.

In Yellowknife, though, we have a free market. I understand that the Direct Charge Co-op chose not to increase their prices. The other retailers did. Eventually everybody started buying gas at Co-op and the other parties lowered their prices — another situation of free...

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to recognize my beautiful mother, who usually watches us on TV but decided to show up in the gallery today. She’s also a resident of Avens Court.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table four documents. Further to my Return to Written Question 21-16(2) I wish to table the following document entitled Aboriginal Employee Statistics, Sport, Recreation, and Youth Division, Municipal and Community Affairs. Further to my Return to Written Question 23-16(2) I wish to table the following document entitled Use of Agency Nurses in the Northwest Territories. Further to my Return to Written Question 30-16(2) I wish to table the following document entitled Travel Summary: Sport, Recreation and Youth Division, Municipal and Community Affairs for the Fiscal Years...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a return to an oral question asked by Mr. Hawkins on June 18, 2008, regarding services for children with autism.

The Department of Health and Social Services does not operate under a framework or policy that is specific to autism. Services for children with disabilities are delivered within the context of the integrated service delivery model, which allows for access to rehabilitation services, referrals to specialists and, if necessary, voluntary support agreements through the Child and Family Services Act. A framework for services for children with disabilities...

Yes, I did indicate in my letter to the Member that we are working on a framework to have a coordinated intervention plan. I look forward to having this framework reviewed with the standing committee members and working to make it more concrete through our upcoming business-development process.

I am aware that the Alberta government has instituted intensive behavioural intervention programs. It is one of the most aggressive programs in the country, but it’s not something that’s available everywhere, and the success and merits of that Alberta program are not conclusive.

I do also believe this is an area where the federal government needs to step in to provide some comprehensive national response.

With respect to Yellowknife or the Territories, it is really hard to speak about exactly what services are available to children without knowing exactly who the child is. Autism is not a one...

That is the first time I have heard that our professionals would in any way limit services available to NWT residents in favour of Nunavut residents. I’m glad the Member brought this to my attention for the first time here. I’d be happy to look into that.

What we do have challenges with is the fact that while we have positions available for rehab services and speech therapists and lots of other services our children need, we do have challenges in filling them, and we have to continue to work on those.

We will continue to work on expanding services for children, especially for children with...

Mr. Speaker, the department is working on a framework to address various issues of disabilities — not particular to autism, but obviously the autism segment will be included in that.

The difficulties with providing all the services we need to for our children has to do with the fact that we have limited professionals available who can provide that service. For those children in need, we do what we can to provide them.

If the Member wants to talk about specific situations of a specific client, I’d be happy to work with the Member to see what we can make available to them.

I have worked with parents of children with autism, and I am aware of situations in Yellowknife where certain children with autism have someone with them the entire day at school because that child needs a full-time aide every minute he is in school.

What I’m saying is it’s hard to talk about how many hours we provide a child with autism. My answer is: it depends. It depends on the needs of the child as well as what services are available. Children with autism sometimes need…. I don’t know; I’m not a professional. I think that’s all I can say for now.

Mr. Speaker, I’m not aware of parents being able to receive funding from Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority or any authority.

What I’m telling the Member is that parents can receive the services. We still have more speech therapists — or any other specialists — that the children with autism or any other disability need. They’re mostly hired by the health authorities. There is a team of people who would work with children and families to provide the services they need.

You have to understand that children with autism come with all sorts of individual and varying degrees of needs...