Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right; I had responded to him on this issue on November 12th last year. There were specific personnel details involved with this position that made it difficult to fill the position at that time, but it has been three months since. I would be happy to undertake to see where we are at and get back to him. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can tell you that we are intimately involved with giving financial advice and interaction with the authority. I think a large part of the time that the director of finance sitting next to me is spent on working on financial issues. As well, this government and this Cabinet directed the department and the authorities to provide detailed financial information, more detailed than ever before, and, lastly, we have undertaken a step where we have now a financial contribution agreement with authorities that lays out in detail the financial expectations of each authority...

I don’t know if we have had specific requests or information seeking that position, but I could undertake to try to get some stats on what kind of feedback we have received on practicenorth.ca website. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document entitled Government of the Northwest Territories Response to Standing Committee on Social Programs Report on the Review of the Child and Family Services Act.

The Member is aware and we’ve had discussions with the committee about a way to go forward. I would like to just reiterate that we are committed to providing support to the families who are under the YACL program. Yellowknife Health and Social Services is currently negotiating a contribution agreement with YACL so that we continue to provide the programs to those families who are currently getting the services from YACL as we work toward a respite care program. I have communicated that to the Members and I’m happy to confirm that again in the House today. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member laid out in his statement, there are various components that are being conducted right now, including the community workshops. So we expect that the work will be done by April/May in time for next year’s business cycle. Thank you.

As I stated in the opening statement, there were 72 recommendations to CFSA. We are making this report available a month sooner than required because we do appreciate that Members want to take a look at that. As I stated, we are supportive of the majority of the recommendations. We are moving immediately on 22 and there are others that we support but need legislation change and working with other departments. We do provide a detailed response to those recommendations. I do believe we have ample time to review those. The issue that the Member raised, yes, we are working with other departments...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s a program that we support and we agree with the Members that it does benefit and we would like to see them expanded as the financial resources permit. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I would.

Mr. Chairman, we must work together with our residents, communities, governments and agencies to meet the health and social services challenges that we face, to help ensure a sustainable health care system for the future.

Today I am presenting the Department of Health and Social Services’ main estimates for fiscal year 2011-2012.

Across Canada and internationally, leaders are being faced with difficult choices around the sustainability and accessibility of health care. It is no different for us in the Northwest Territories. We know that we need to make...

The advisory group is not formed yet and so I will get back to the Member on that.

I just want to caution that we will, if that’s what the Member is wanting to know, definitely consult with the Council for Persons with Disabilities and YACL and other groups that are involved in this work. We need to make sure that eventually, at the end of the day, those are the groups who will be vying to provide the program and we don’t want to interfere with their ability to be able to deliver the programs. I need to make it clear that we will definitely consult with them to advise us. We will work with them...