Tom Beaulieu

Certainly the mandate of the department is to do the best possible job it can in introducing infrastructure into the community. The new health centre in Fort Providence is on schedule. We’re proceeding with that piece of infrastructure. The timelines that we are looking at prior to moving to a public administrator is the same timeline that we are looking at now, so there will be no change in that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, on-the-land treatment is something that was called for by the communities. I do believe that the philosophy of the on-the-land treatment is to get people to go back out on the land for healing. A lot of the Aboriginal people who called for this felt very connected to the land, so we’re trying to develop a philosophy around that type of treatment.

Also, in order to gather more information and develop a program, we have hired an individual who will be specifically working on this project, on-the-land treatment, and we’re also piloting three on-the-land treatment programs that would...

Mr. Speaker, certainly that is possible. We would be pleased to consult with the Members that are affected; in fact, all Members, since it is a territorial facility. Thank you.

The four residential treatment facilities that we contract with in the South, one is sort of a culture-based residential treatment that’s been in existence for many years, a very successful residential treatment facility, and that is in Edmonton. There are two in Calgary; one is a residential treatment facility for women and the other is a residential treatment facility that we thought had a lot of success. Another one is in Nanaimo, British Columbia, which is another treatment facility that we selected that we thought had good successes in the past.

The process of getting out to those...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to acknowledge a group of fourth year Bachelor of Science Nursing Program students and their instructor, Ms. Jodi Brennan, from Aurora College. Please welcome to the gallery the following nursing students: Kendall Gall, Kyla Larocque, Jocelyn Apps, Valisa Aho, Sasha Budd, Merrill Cooper, Axelle Kearnan-Carbonneau, Lori-Ann King, Violca Memedi, Lindsay Ohrling, Megan Paul, Carolyn Ridgely, Diedralee Roy and Tanya Silke.

Nursing is a valuable profession in the Northwest Territories, and I hope each student will find a rewarding career in one of our...

Certainly, when we see an increase in development and also that the consequence of that is an increase in the population. I know that at one point Wrigley did have a population high enough to accommodate nurses; at this time it doesn’t. As we see an increase in industry activities in that area, then we would certainly consider that and take it into consideration when we provide nursing to Wrigley. Thank you.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Along with the other communities that currently don’t have resident nurses, we are looking at Wrigley. All communities that have a population of under 250 people are essentially not scheduled to have residential nurses in their community in relation to the Integrated Service Delivery Model that we use to provide medical services to the various communities. But recognizing that all of these communities that don’t have residential nurses do require some nursing, we’re trying to find models that will work in communities such as Wrigley. Thank you.

Thank you. Certainly some of the discussions that we had early on in the development of on-the-land has been that people have called for an AA-based type of program, then starting that on the land and then using AA as an aftercare program. However, I’m not sure if that’s going to be something that will be encompassed out on the land at this point.

At this point, I think the majority of the on-the-land program will be based around the connection the First Nations people have with being out on the land, and using that, I think, as the basis for developing the program. I’m not sure we would have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Certainly that was one of the earlier objectives when this facility, Nats’ejee K’eh, closed, that we attempt to streamline the process for any individuals who are wishing to go for treatment.

As I indicated earlier, we believe that once an individual presents themselves as needing treatment, we are trying to get into the very next facility of their choice on the very next intake. Thank you very much.

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly possible that that facility could remain with the department and be used for some form of residential treatment or support treatment overall across the territory. We are going to be having those discussions with the K’atlodeeche First Nations. It is on the reserve there, and that facility, at one point, was something that they had lobbied for, brought onto the reserve and initially was mostly a cultural treatment facility before it became a medical treatment facility. So there’s a possibility that we may run mobile treatments out of there. It’s also possible to...