Sandy Lee

That issue was raised and I spoke about that when MLA Bromley asked. I think we need to be... I understand what the Member is saying, but we should be aware of some of the clinical decisions that clinicians make. There is some legislation in place that has a bearing on when the people are being discharged. There are limitations on how long we can keep some of these people in treatment places. There are Charter issues and Freedom of Rights issues as well. So it’s not always just about money that our clinicians make their decisions based on their clinical expertise as well as their legislative...

Yes, I am willing to look at that. We need to be mindful of the fact, though, that addictions and mental health programming needs to have a spectrum of services and there is a place for residential and more acute care. We have been looking at some of the money we are spending on sending people down south to institutional settings and we have been refocusing our energy on seeing if we can use that resource better within the Territories. This is what we are doing in the North. So yes, I’d be happy to discuss that further with the Member.

Thank you. I don’t have all of the information for all of the communities in the Territories in front of me, but for Lutselk’e we provide $186,000 for Lutselk’e mental health and addictions. We also provide $23,000 for Lutselk’e cultural programs; $76,876 for Deninu K’ue First Nation to fund their addiction counsellor position in Fort Resolution, and in addition we provided $23,000 to Deninu K’ue First Nation for youth addiction initiatives. That’s just an example of the different programming funding that we provide to smaller communities.

I take the Member’s point that maybe we should look at...

Mr. Speaker, as we are all aware, we have 31 communities in the Northwest Territories. I think the communities like Inuvik or Fort Simpson, Hay River, Norman Wells, are good candidates for having midwifery services where mothers could be supported from surrounding communities. Obviously I don’t think we could do it in the smallest of communities where there might be two or three births. I believe originally the Midwifery Program was targeted for Hay River. The community chose not to take that on and that position started in Yellowknife.

So this is an important issue and it needs a comprehensive...

Mr. Speaker, the Member is making correlation of analysis on this data. I am not sure if it is a connection that experts who look at these things make, but I would be happy... I have no problem looking at what the Member is suggesting.

I could tell you that in Fort Smith, since we have had a Midwifery Program, there have been 200 births and about 54 percent of those births have been attended to by the midwives. Within the Territories, Fort Smith has the most comprehensive complement of midwives and even then we have about only 50 percent, or a little less than 50 percent births still happen at...

Mr. Speaker, yes, we would obviously do that. I would commit to do that. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I have said on many occasions that we believe, yes, all of our authorities are not necessarily under right budget. We are working toward right budget for all of the authorities. You can’t be looking at Stanton and Beau-Del separately, Mr. Speaker. The Member has said that we all know that Stanton is underfunded and if you do a zero-based review, you will know. I have to disagree with the Member on both accounts. We do not necessarily know. You can’t just make a statement that Stanton is underfunded, and a zero-based review would only tell you how much money you are spending to do...

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the Member that the programs are spread out, but I don’t think it is there without mandate. I think all of our seniors programs have specific programming and criteria mandate that are housed in responsible divisions and sections.

Mr. Speaker, once again, I am interested in looking at what he has in mind. Maybe it is something that the Standing Committee on Social Programs can take a look at as well. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to seeing what he has. Thank you.

I’m happy to note that that increase of $1 million under prevention and promotion services speaks to Healthy Choices Framework and Healthy Families programming that I spoke about earlier, and Fort Simpson is one of them.

On the social worker question, I am committed to following up on that. I agree with the Member that we need to know what the status of the current incumbent is. We were not able to fill the position with a casual just because… I mean, they have social work coverage, it’s just that to have a position there, because this position requires to have all kinds of statutory powers...

Mr. Speaker, now I see where he is getting at. Okay. Mr. Speaker, we have a lot of success in HR training for health care professionals. We graduated 11 nurses last year. We are expecting 19. We are expecting way more over the next couple of years. CHNs, as the Member stated, we have trained them and we have placed them in communities. I would be happy to undertake to get that information for the Member. I think actually now we have embarrassment of riches for nurses because we have been so successful with the Nursing Program.

As we go forward, what we see now is we need more community support...