Tom Beaulieu

Thank you. I don’t know the exact reason. Reasons vary, I do believe, from community to community on why the committees were unable to strike these committees. They vary from not wanting to be involved in the child welfare of other people, and sometimes communities are so small that all child protection and child welfare issues seem to be of a relative child and so on. For some, actually, the fact that the authority staff are not consistently meeting with the community and putting a consistent push into trying to get these child and family services committees struck and operational is largely...

Thank you. We have set up a structure where we have, within the Cabinet, a subcommittee of Cabinet that is a social envelope committee, which is led by the Minister of Justice. Within that committee we have the various Ministers working on that committee. We also work with the Regular Members in developing some work through the small communities, the real remote communities, to be able to have the work that’s needed to be able to assist seniors in the various communities across the small communities where they may not have the same type of support systems that are available such as the NGOs in...

Thank you. We have a seniors coordinator within the Department of Health and Social Services reporting through the system at Health and Social Services. That coordinator works closely with the NWT Seniors’ Society. The Seniors’ Society supports the various seniors’ organizations in the communities across the Territories. That is how we coordinate our activities or any support that we may have from the government through the one individual that works through the Department of Health and she will get some administrative support within the Department of Health and Social Services. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m sorry; I was distracted and didn’t hear the question.

Mr. Speaker, normally we don’t have a system where we pay retroactively on medical travel and so on within our own system. Right within our system we don’t have that possibility. But I will look at having a system where if it’s medical travel, just like we do medical travel into Alberta, there would be medical travel from Fort Liard. As opposed to going to Simpson, they’re going down to Fort Nelson and it would be just like the regular medical travel system. I will look at that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do not have arrangements currently with BC Health.

Again, Mr. Speaker, I have no problem to discuss the issue of dogs, stray dogs in the communities that could potentially be a danger for seniors with some mobility issues with the Minister of MACA. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Health and Social Services and also in my responsibilities for seniors, we are working on a plan for a continuum of care for seniors. One of the main objectives of that work is going to keep seniors in their home communities, in their own homes, as long as possible. That may require some technical work on the units such as ramps and other barrier-free provisions within the unit. Thank you.

Thank you. I can discuss that with the regular committees, committees of MLAs, to see if a charter would be something that would enhance support for seniors. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, as the Members know, the responsibility for the Minister under seniors comes with actually no budgets. However, we do draw from interdepartmental pool where Health and Social Services provides some funding, some coordinator, some support to the seniors and the Seniors’ Society, and then the funding comes from the various departments to the NWT Seniors’ Society as an example. Thank you.