Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as throughout the Northwest Territories, some of these homes, people have been living in them for almost -- like, I can honestly say in my community, there are some families that have been living in the same home for 30 plus years. So they're just giving them the time to, you know, offer up, you know, the information first, give them the information, give them time, you know, those information on quitting smoking because we know in the Northwest Territories that we do provide smoking cessation for all Northwest Territories residents and all those types of...

Mr. Speaker, I can follow up with NTHSSA. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, I appreciate the question and I think I'll be able to take this back to NTHSSA, because this is something that I have also asked for. I wanted to know the stats. I want to know how many patients are being seen in the clinics, especially here in the capital, and are those numbers increasing? What are the waitlists? So I know that they are working on some data right now, and I most recently spoke with the public administrator, and they are getting ready to provide a briefing to me on some of this data and when I do have this data, I'll be able to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't know the circumstances and I'm not going to speak to this situation specifically. I don't know the age of the person, but I do know that our child and family services does have a voluntary service agreement that if you're over 16, and I believe that there are different circumstances around it, that, you know, if you don't have -- if you're homeless, they can work with the youth or the young adult -- or, you know, a youth, to try to find supports for them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one of the things that we have done as a government with feedback from Indigenous and small communities is that we've created the Community Mental Health Awareness Fund, which is something that it incorporates for the Indigenous governments have an opportunity to apply on funding to run their own types of programs, wellness programs, recovery programs, anything that their community chooses to. Then once the initial period is open for regional Indigenous governments, after, I think it's January 31st, I can get the details and send it to the Members on this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what I will do is I will have a conversation with NTHSSA as to what has happened and what has changed, and I can report back to the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, and I appreciate these questions because one of the things as, like the Member has said, I do support the work that the Office of Client Experience do and the patient advocates. I'm a champion for the work that they do. But we didn't have any actual data on the things that were being brought forward, especially when it came to Indigenous people. We've heard it multiple. We all can stand up in here and say we know that some of these issues. However, like, I'll use, for instance, medical travel. Medical travel, anybody -- I've travelled to most...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I know from the information that I have that there are urgent slots at the Stanton Territorial Hospital lab site, and at the primary care lab site there are as well urgent designated times for the day. And when patients are, for instance, having surgery or something like that, they usually have a preop the day before. If they need to have blood work, they should be ensuring that they're utilizing their physician or whoever their preop was with to consult the lab to make sure that they have that appointment. And with waitlists, I know that they routinely try...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as most landlords, and we did the -- like, I think throughout the Northwest Territories already have it in their leases that there is no smoking in their units. Housing is changing their policy to create that now. What we'll do as health is we'll continue to, you know, monitor what is going on in those units that are multi-units. We'll work with housing. I think that is the biggest thing that we will be able to do is to see moving forward in the future if there's more work that will need to be done through legislation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And my colleague and I, Minister of Housing NWT, have had ongoing conversations on the best way to move forward, and I believe on April 1st, there will be a blanket policy for no smoking in all housing units in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.