Lesa Semmler

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the vacant positions within other departments, you know, health and social services is an enormous department, it is the largest department, and if I -- if I start eating up all of their vacant positions that they may be trying to recruit for or having trouble recruit for, I don't think my colleagues would be too happy with me. But what I can do is, like I mentioned to the Member, is I can commit to looking at what the needs are of the people of the Sahtu. I travelled with the Member. I heard a lot of different scenarios with -- along the lines of medical...

Current long-term care beds we have are 204. And then we have a number of residents residing in long-term care beds, 182. And people on the waitlist, 35 currently.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, many of our programs that are federally funded are -- you know, they're allocated as to certain area that is are, you know, priorities of the federal government. And so we have to try and fit the needs of the Northwest Territories into that. However, you know, with the medical travel, you know, what I can do is I can commit to ensuring that we review as part of our process under reviewing medical travel where our staff are located, and where are they located it best meets the needs of the territory and the residents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. I would have to get back to the Member for that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what I will do is I will get the information so that I'm not saying the wrong thing on the floor and get back to the Members with an answer to that question. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the decision to create the NTHSSA as one territorial health and social services came in 2016, long before my time, while I was still an employee within that -- the health area. The governance council structure at the time of the day, I even remember watching the Legislative Assembly, I remember hearing and seeing and talking with other people that were attending those meetings and the consultations to create the structure. The communities were very afraid that they would lose their voice on how health care and social services should be in their communities...

Mr. Speaker, when this team does training, they do use the Indigenous people from wherever they are doing the training. The MLAs were able to take this training and the senior management took this training within the government. And so they do -- as the MLAs may be -- like, remember at the beginning after our first Assembly that there are Indigenous -- it is led by Northerners, that training, Indigenous Northerners, and they do have people coming in and doing presentations, adding to the work that they do. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, on September 30th, 2024, Canada's national Day for Truth and Reconciliation, the Government of the Northwest Territories, the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, the Government of Canada, and Inuvialuit Qitunrariit Inuuniarnikkun Maligaksat made history by signing the Inuvialuit Coordination Agreement and Fiscal Agreement.

This historic agreement identifies how the implementation of the Inuvialuit Qitunrariit Inuuniarnikkun Maligaksat, also referred to as the Inuvialuit Family Way of Living Law, will be supported in the Northwest Territories. This is the first coordination agreement...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have an amazing team called the cultural safety and antiracism unit. That unit is staffed with all Indigenous highly, highly intelligent group of individuals that are all Indigenous from the Northwest Territories, and they are guided by the Indigenous advisory body that are appointed to that by the Indigenous governments from the Northwest Territories, and they are the ones that, you know, tackle a lot of the work in our health care system on making sure that all of our policies, our programs. They do the anti -- cultural safety and antiracism training...

Mr. Speaker, the chief public health officer -- you know, the reason why the alert came out was there is -- they were notified of this, and there is a current investigation ongoing right now, an investigation that -- you know, that it wouldn't be -- I would not be able to speak to in the House as it's ongoing. But the reason why the chief public health officer did go out and do an announcement publicly right away was to be able to put the information out there so people could -- they didn't -- you know, they wanted to ensure that -- not everybody is on social media, not everybody -- and...