Yes, thank you.

Agreed.

---Agreed

Yes, Mr. Chairman. I have with me the deputy minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Ken Lovely; and the director of finance and management services, John Doyle.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When we broke from this discussion on Wednesday, April 5th, I was making some general comments. I had made a point here that the will of the people is always there, Mr. Chairman, that health is always a key issue. There are political bodies in the community, many have been there for many years, the band councils.

I know that in one of the big centres in my constituency, Fort Simpson, the idea is to have everybody in the community work together. We have the band council, we have the village council, we have a Metis Nation office, we have government employees, and health is a very important item in this community. Lately I have been hearing that there are some problems coming forward.

I am not blaming anybody here. Any time there is a situation, problems come up and the idea here is to solve these problems. Some of the problems are related to me as the MLA representing them, and I have forwarded them to the Minister and her department. I also deal with the Mackenzie Regional Health Services with the problems.

My concern is that I know there is discussion about having a board in place, eventually, down the line. We've been hearing about this since 1988. That's quite a long time ago. Recently, there have been some changes within the department, the amalgamation of Health and Social Services. The amalgamation is going to happen at the community and regional level, we're told. This is the work that is going on. But I don't know how long that's going to take. I don't know whether these changes are going to solve the types of community problems and concerns that I have.

I guess I'm seeking some help here to try to resolve the health issues in the community. I've given the department some suggestions about how they could work with some groups in the communities, mainly with the chief and band council; that the local health staff, either the doctor or head of the nursing group or head of the health centre, could meet on a periodic basis with the band council as a delegation to listen to what the chief and band council are saying. The chief and band council are the political leaders of the community who also get feedback from their members. They take these concerns forward through these meetings.

I think a lot of specific health problems could be resolved if the health care givers in the community worked with the leaders of the Dene in the community to try to resolve some of these issues at the community level. I'm saying this because I'm hearing about a lot of specific health problems, as an MLA, and I've forwarded them to the Minister. They go back down the system like that and what I'm suggesting is everyone in the small communities has to live together, they should work together and they should try to deal with some of their problems at the community level.

If the Minister could take that direction and see if it could be done, I think it would eliminate a lot of problems. A lot of them might be misunderstandings within the community, differences of opinions and so forth. You have to remember, too, that the message has to get down to the health care workers that this territorial government is administering health services to a lot of treaty and Inuit people and they have special rights through treaties. Now, the territorial government is going to be administering Metis health benefits as well. These are the things that health care workers in the communities have to understand and be sensitive to so that these different rights are not eroded by misunderstanding. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to assure the Member that it is not from the lack of trying to get something formulated. We'll continue to do that and if there's some way we can work it out and impress upon the community people that it's very important to get together, we will do all we can. We've tried at the regional level and at the community level and I know that the work we do is not routine, it's sporadic. I know the desire of the Member is to set up something that is more stable and ongoing.

I'm willing to give it another try. I know it has not been easy for the Member or ourselves to try to get the different bodies together, but we're willing to deal with whatever the advanced group is. We're willing to do that in the community, we've made that offer before. We've been trying but, as usual, it's the will of the community that really drives it. Perhaps if we're not communicating enough to get our commitment through to them, then let's give it another try. We can do that in late April, after the session is finished. I'm certainly willing to go in, along with the deputy minister. Maybe a commitment by us would give more certainty to the people in the community that we want to support them in getting organized so the health issues can be dealt with.

Agreed.

---Agreed

Line By Line

Directorate

Agreed.

---Agreed

Community Programs And Services

(Microphone turned off)

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, there will be a supp that will move $495,000 to the Department of Education, Culture and Employment for youth initiatives. There is a plan to promote this area of opportunity and that would be out of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, because of the consolidation of Health and Social Services, we were late getting the amount of dollars moved to the Department of Education, Culture and Employment; so, it's on the fault of our department not getting the necessary paperwork ready in time to move it into the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. My understanding is that the criteria for the type of funding that has taken place in the past will carry on, but under the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, the part of money that we have retained is the dollars that were more specific to drug and alcohol types of programming.

Mr. Chairman, that is correct.

Mr. Chairman, I will make a commitment to make sure that the information is provided the moment we have the packages ready. As well, I am sure that I can speak on behalf of the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Nerysoo, who will do likewise.

Mr. Chairman, with regard to the number of dollars in this specific activity, the number of dollars remains exactly the same. However, I want to say that in conjunction with moving towards allowing the social service workers in the community to do the job of counselling and being involved and having the time to deal with child sexual abuse, there will be more time allocated at the community level through the social worker program. I believe in certain areas we have mental health workers as well, which are established positions; these people, in conjunction with social service workers, will be dedicating more time to the area of child sexual abuse, so even though the figure here hasn't increased, the anticipation is that the time that is made available at the community level will increase. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, the honourable Member will get no argument from me in that regard. I just want to say that, certainly, in the number of community wellness workshops that I have been taking part in, this community-based consolidation, putting together a number of activities within the community to address the issues from a community level, certainly has indicated that the awareness of child sexual abuse has gained much more support in that people are willing to do something about it.

They're willing to try to battle the questions of not only why children get abused but the other social issues in the community which are linked, such as alcohol abuse. I hope this initiative, which tends to be catching on very well, along with income support reform, will meet some expectations of the communities. We certainly support the fact that we have to monitor this very carefully so it really does happen, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, if the Member agrees, I would like Mr. Ken Lovely to go over the breakdown.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The department did get an appropriation at the end of the fiscal year for foster care because of the increased numbers of cases that we experienced in that year. We are working hard now to try to determine whether or not we had an extraordinary increase that's just an anomaly, whether it is just something that will only happen once, or whether this is something we can expect to see on an ongoing basis. It's not clear at this point. We don't have an answer to that yet, we need to do more research on it.

We are looking at some initiatives that will help us over the coming year to cut down on the number of cases where we are required to apprehend children and place them in foster care. One of the first things is development of an early intervention strategy with the Departments of Justice and Education, Culture and Employment. We hope to be able to build on some of the suggestions that were given to us by the Standing Committee on Finance and the Special Committee on Health and Social Services about implementing school-based services for youth, along the lines of the model that is operating in Arviat where at-risk children are identified early and the departments cooperate to find ways to provide support to the children and family so they don't come into care. That's the first initiative.

The second thing is the development of two pieces of legislation on children and family services and adoptions, as a follow-up to the good work that was done over the years in child welfare reform. The focus of the Family and Children Services Act is to find ways to get communities to take ownership of some of the problems and find solutions that will bring community resources to bear to keep children in their homes with relatives, to find help for the parents, and to provide counselling services through the resources available in the communities and the regions.

Part of the community action fund philosophy is to try to help communities find ways to implement innovative new projects that will result in healthier families at the community level. There is $3.2 million in that fund and we're developing the guidelines for it at the moment. It's intended to provide some help in terms of early intervention. We think that, unless we start getting to children and families before these problems occur, we're going to continue to see an increase in the number of times we have to investigate families, apprehend children, place them in foster care, and process department adoptions to find new families for them.

There is a lot of work under way to, first of all, assess the problem but, secondly, to find cooperative ways to deal with it. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, we would be pleased to share that information with the Member.

Mr. Chairman, perhaps those two questions could have very easily been put together as the answer is very similar on the approach to dealing with these issues. Mr. Lovely did outline the issue and some of the areas where the concern had come in. There is no difference in foster care than residential care for children, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Madam Minister. Mr. Dent.

Mr. Chairman, yes, it is still shown in this activity.

Mr. Chairman, I don't know whether I would term it as lax controls, in this situation. Over a number of years, in terms of dealing with social assistance, we have been asked to try to work with the previous year's figures as if it were a controlling factor. It is a continuous desire for us to try to keep the social assistance down.

But the uptake on social assistance, as Members know, certain areas in the Northwest Territories do not have employment opportunities. They are less able to seek employment. I know that one region, where before there was very limited use of social assistance, now, because of the lack of job opportunities, more social assistance has been given out.

As well, although the figures are not all in, there are many, many, many young people, young women, or older children, having children -- those numbers are very, very high. Once a young lady has a child, there is an obligation to provide social assistance to this person. That number has vastly increased.

There are areas where we feel much more work has to be done. The only thing that I can really say that will help is to try to get to the communities, try to deal with the individual communities to bring more awareness on exactly what is happening in their communities on a global basis. We have no control over 67 births in Gjoa Haven in one year, or 72 in Arviat. Some of those young people are 13, 14, 15 years old and having children.

So we are in that blip, that is what I see when I move from community to community. That is obvious to my eyes and probably obvious to everyone else's eyes. In trying to deal with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment on investing in people, and all the programs, we are trying to pull that together to see if there are other ways that these young people, instead of relying on social assistance, can work themselves back into training, back into an educational program. But I know that it is extremely difficult when you are raising a little child with no means of male support for that child. A lot of the demands relate to that particular area of growth. The only way that we can try to meet the Minister of Finance's expectations to keep this figure down, is to try to deal with the communities on a very proactive basis, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I see us doing that in conjunction with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. I don't believe that we have the financial flexibility right now to try to catch these people who are in the social assistance net. We have to work together. It isn't either/or, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Madam Minister.

Mr. Chairman, on March 10th, the social envelope departments, including MACA at the time, agreed on three priority areas to direct community action fund resources. The projects dealing with family violence, early intervention for children and family and training for care givers will be given priority under the community action fund. There is going to be an evaluation of the existing drug and alcohol programs that exist in various communities. Where it is applicable, we will be looking at the wages and benefits of these front-line workers.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Madam Premier.

Mr. Chairman, I thought I had indicated that previously. It is our intention to address the inflationary requirements through the community action fund, as these centres fit into the three priority items.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, initially, I was going to make a few general comments, but I will try to roll them together under community programs and services. I have a comment with regard to social assistance. I know that social assistance is going over to Education, Culture and Employment to place together the training components. The initiative is good, however, I think we have to recognize the fact that there will be people on social assistance regardless of what areas you are going to try to get them funnelled into.

The concern I have as a Member -- and I express this many times over -- is the fact that as a jurisdiction, we are probably quite behind in our basic social assistance payments to meet basic needs. From the comments from some of my constituents, single people get anywhere up to $300 a month to meet the basic demands of social assistance. I find this to be very questionable whether it is a basic need we are attempting to meet without the amount of support we should be giving, particularly when you take into account individuals who possibly are getting $396 a month -- I think that is the figure -- of social assistance to provide their food and clothing expenses. On the other hand, you are giving housing allowance to civil servants of $450 a month just to live in the north. I think that causes a real inequity in the system and an unfairness for individuals who can't get jobs to try to survive in the north. I really believe that social assistance has to be looked at. I commend the Minister's department in attempting to assist the young people with the education and training component. For social assistance, we have recognized an escalating cost over the past few years. It would be safe to say the amount is probably comparable to southern jurisdictions.

I certainly would appreciate it if the Minister would look at this particular area to increase some of the basic demands. When individuals can't have their basic needs met, many times they will come to us, as MLAs, feeling that they aren't treated fairly and expressing the problems of not having their basic needs met. They do have valid concerns when you look at it. We need to find a method to ensure that the basic needs of individuals are met.

The other comment I wanted to make, Mr. Chairman, is with regard to addictions and suicide preventions. Years ago, and not even that long ago, about six years ago, we didn't even have any treatment centres in the north to deal with addictions. It seems when all the facilities were out of the north, the process was easier for an individual to access treatment centres. They were sent to Poundmakers, Henwood, Bellwood, Action North in High Level or different areas. Now, with treatment centres across the north, it appears that it is more difficult for an individual to access treatment. Many individuals have said they used to be able to go to the alcohol and drug treatment centre to ask for assistance to get into a treatment centre. Now, not only do you have to go to an alcohol and drug treatment counsellor, you also have to get an assessment done and that goes to the regional alcohol and drug specialist in the community to determine whether the support should be there to send you to a treatment centre. The more assessments you get on an individual who is wanting treatment is sometimes discouraging for an individual to get the treatment by the time the decision is made that they can go for treatment. It seems somewhat ironic because the intent of building all these treatment centres across the north was to tempt people to take treatment. The accessibility to these centres should have been a lot easier for individuals.

I will save some of my comments but would appreciate if those two points were noted by the Minister. I want to see what her comments are on those. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, on the issue of social assistance payments, I know it's an issue that comes up all the time -- whether a person can survive on social assistance. We have that responsibility and I'll take a look at that. I will talk to the Member about some of the things I see that we can do, person to person, on that issue.

Regarding the process of treatment for drugs and alcohol, if there's a centre in a community, people have to access that centre before they can go to the regional one. After the regional centre, if they want to go to something outside of the region, there's another process. We'll have to look at that because I know there have been several complaints where people have said they are not going to get the treatment in their community, that they know they won't get the treatment and they have to go to another place. Right now, because we put more regional responsibility in, they are the ones who are making the decision about whether people go from a community centre to a regional centre, from a regional centre to a territorial treatment centre. It's causing frustration.

I don't know exactly what we can do about it because we did say that the regions should try to look at what stage a person stays in a community and at what stage a person moves from A to B. I'm aware of the frustration that people are having. If there's another way we can take care of people's desire to seek treatment...I think the important part, if an individual is looking at repairing some of the problems they're having, is we should do as much as we can to get them to the right place. I'll look at that as well because it's an ongoing concern that we have.

I think maybe I could suggest to the Minister that what is happening now is if an individual wants treatment, they go to the alcohol and drug treatment centre and most communities have alcohol and drug treatment programs. But we know there are only treatment centres in Iqaluit, Yellowknife and Hay River. So what is happening is an individual goes to the alcohol and drug program and they're assessed to determine whether they should go for treatment and where they should go for treatment.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What basically is happening is an individual is assessed and then the assessment goes to the alcohol and drug specialist in the regional areas. Therefore, they are getting an assessment twice. I'm not saying that it's not good but I think the alcohol and drug programs should still have the ability to say yes, this person is sincere, they do want treatment and I can tell that they are trying their best to address their alcoholism. I think they should have the ability to call the Yellowknife and Hay River treatment centres, or the Iqaluit treatment centre, for that matter, to see if they can find a time for that individual to take that program.

Right now, that's not happening. The assessment and the decision is at the alcohol and drug specialist level within the government. Sometimes, I think individuals even go to the alcohol and drug specialist to try to convince them they need treatment when their initial request went to the alcohol and drug worker. Instead of devolving the authority to the community level, which was the intent of these alcohol and drug programs, we're basically centralizing the authority in the government.

I think maybe if you can give that authority back to the programs, it would alleviate a lot of frustration on the part of clients and you would no doubt be able to fill up the treatment centres. It is my understanding that they're not at the full capacity we had hoped they would be. You would probably move a lot of people through the alcohol and drug program. That's something I would suggest to the Minister, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I think that's good advice and we'll follow through on that. The intention never was to have the specialist impede a person's access to treatment. We will look into that and try to follow the original intent of regional decision-making.

The other comment I wanted to make, Mr. Chairman, was with regard to the overall amalgamation of the departments of Health and Social Services. There are a few of my constituents who are, no doubt, disappointed with the amalgamation but, at the same time, when I advised them of the effort to make best use of dollars spent, it has certainly made them understand the need for amalgamation of services to be delivered.

I know my constituency was very supportive of the idea of amalgamation. The community got together in a couple of meetings to find out how we can do this amalgamation in the most effective, efficient and non-disruptive manner. I think that if there were concerns, the community was going to work with the department on them but it seems that the process is slowing down. I don't know if it's the Minister's department. Are your intentions to slow down the amalgamation because some were feeling that it was going too fast, or is it the intent to continue to support the communities that do want to see this amalgamation in an effective manner?

Mr. Chairman, there is no intention of slowing it down. I know we are slow in getting to it but we should be responding to the communities. If the communities have questions and concerns, we should be there dealing with them. If there has been a slowness to respond, it's because of our inability to respond as quickly as we should but the intention is not to slow it down.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Minister for acknowledging that and I certainly thank her for the departmental support given to my community in trying to address this amalgamation. It's an issue that is sensitive where the community is requesting that basic needs be met and I appreciate what support has been granted by the department. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, up to this time, we have only had very general discussions on the direction that the department is going to take on this regard. Just very recently we have received the final approval to move on it. Once we are out of this session, we will be dealing in more specifics with the Development Corporation.

Mr. Chairman, when I made my response, I did not mean at the end of June; I meant after this session here. During break, or whatever the term is going to be between this time and that time. So, we are not waiting until the June session, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, is this the place to ask about the community alcohol and drug programs?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I have a specific question about the community alcohol and drug programs. I wrote the Minister several months ago about what I consider to be inequities in benefits for workers in treatment centres and workers in community programs.

I was very grateful when the department was able to improve the salaries for treatment centre workers by providing settlement allowance last year. But it has created an inequity, Mr. Chairman. I will cite my community for example. There are alcohol and drug treatment workers working in the Baffin treatment centre who have this benefit. There are alcohol and drug workers working in the community program, Upassuraakut, who don't have this benefit. So there is an inequity there.

I would like to ask if the Minister of the department is looking at addressing...I should say that I understand that there are limited funds, I fully understand this. But I understood that the community alcohol and drug programs were being evaluated and that there was perhaps going to be more attention paid to getting value for money, perhaps deciding where money is being well spent and where it is not being well spent.

I would hope that an evaluation of that kind would allow us to improve the benefits to employees in centres that are determined to be doing an important job. I guess I am suggesting, even if there isn't additional money, that it can be found through the evaluation of existing programs that I understand is under way. If we are going to do this job, we should either do it well or not do it at all. And there is a long-standing feeling that we are expecting people to do important work with obviously less pay and benefits than employees in other area.

The other inequity is if you have an employee working in the mental health counselling field for the Department of Health, in a public health centre or a community health centre, they are likely to be paid a lot more generously than these workers in community programs. I am sure the Minister understands the issue. I would appreciate a response. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I believe that this specific question was brought up earlier. And we said that we would be dealing with the various drug and alcohol, and safe shelter benefits and the inequities in that, when the social envelope departments, including Municipal and Community Affairs, looked at the funding under the community action fund. It was agreed that there would be three priority areas to direct the community action fund and those are projects dealing with family violence, early intervention for children and families, and training for care givers. Hopefully we will be able to address those inequities through that fund, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Am I correct that the community alcohol and drug programs are being reviewed and evaluated with a view to ensuring that monies are well spent? Thank you.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, I believe that we are doing treatment centres and then looking at the community centres this year. As the Member is fully aware, some of these centres are a major force in the community. Others probably could be redesigned to work in another way and capture some of the specific community problems. So there is an evaluation of these projects to see whether we are spending money well and getting the benefit for the resources that are being expended. So that is being done. While we are doing that, it wouldn't make sense if a particular centre was assessed to be outdated for that community and we raised wages in that same community. It has to be done in conjunction and collaboration with what is being done and what the community's expectations are. Mr. Speaker, we are doing those two things that the Member has suggested are in need of being done. Thank you.