Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As you know, when answering the concern of the honourable Member in the House on this issue, I had indicated that last fall there was a preliminary report provided by Public Works on the assessment of that Gjoa Haven Health Centre which indicated that a renovation would be adequate. Subsequent to that, the final report came in that was quite contrary to the initial one, which, as recently as less than two months ago, recommended a new facility for the hamlet of Gjoa Haven. Unfortunately, by that time, the department had revised their financial projections for that project based on that initial preliminary report to reflect a renovation of an amount of approximately $644,000. Our budget before you has that amount included because we haven't had the timing of the final report; it wasn't available to us. We are now in a quandary about what to do in this particular situation. The honourable Member mentioned it in the House and I offered to work with him and the municipal leaders in order to identify some options on how we can handle this situation.

Mr. Chairman, we can try to retain funds for this current fiscal year to carry over into next, and try to plan out some additional funding sources to meet the requirements. That would mean there would be no work in the municipality of Gjoa Haven on this particular project this year. It would mean we would have to come up with some additional financing for 1997-98. It is something I've recognized as an issue. As I stated in the House, I'm willing to work with the Member and the municipality to reach an accommodation that would be suitable regarding this issue.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I understand the fiscal situation of this government. I also understand the dilemma the honourable Minister is faced with. I know there are needs in other communities. To come up with new money would mean one area of this jurisdiction would suffer. I also know there will be setbacks in coming up with new funding and that there would be no work for the community of Gjoa Haven this coming summer. I will move to the next area of concern.

Mr. Chairman, 25 per cent of the patients on medical travel to Yellowknife end up at the Kitikmeot Boarding Home. These people are usually unilingual elders and, in some cases, a unilingual elder travels without an interpreter/translator or escort. A patient travelling to Edmonton, via Yellowknife, informed me she was travelling alone. She is unilingual. I went to the airport to meet with her. She was travelling through Yellowknife on her way to Edmonton. Mr. Chairman, she didn't have an interpreter travelling with her. The RCMP officer from Pelly Bay was also travelling to southern Canada and I asked him if he would take care of her, to make sure she was picked up by medical personnel in Edmonton.

The following week the same RCMP officer informed me that if she hadn't been travelling with the patient, the patient would have been stuck at the Edmonton airport without an interpreter, unable to communicate with anyone. She would not have been able to phone anyone in Edmonton to make arrangements to get picked up and taken to a medical facility. What is the policy of this government? Is there a requirement written in the policy to allow an interpreter/translator to accompany a patient travelling to a larger centre from their community? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Within the existing policy, escorts are allowed for unilingual people, elders and minors. Medical travel costs are the most significant cost component of our budget. This is one of the areas we've looked at. At the current time, medical travel, including the authorization of escorts, is within the mandate of the boards. To give them this authority has been a recent decision. This allows them the flexibility to recognize local individual interests of the patients they deal with. This is one of the areas we're trying to tighten up on. We are looking at allowing boards the flexibility to make those decisions on how they implement policies to attain some cost savings in this area; and, at the same time, recognizing that there's going to be unique exceptions to the rules that they would have to address on an occasional basis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to conclude by saying I'll communicate with Gjoa Haven regarding the offer of the Minister to work with the community and myself. I will relay the message from the Minister to the community of Gjoa Haven and get back to the Minister in the near future on what the community is willing to do with the amount of money that is allocated to build a health centre. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to working with the Member and the community on this. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I welcome the comments by the Minister in his support for the women's shelters. I would encourage the Minister to continue to seek funds for wage increases and continued professional development for the staff. I cannot overly emphasize the support for the professional development, and for the staff at the shelters who are in very stressful positions everyday. I would also encourage the Minister to continue to look at the proposals for amalgamating the different boards of health we have in the Northwest Territories; hopefully, in the field of reducing administration costs and honorariums paid to said different boards and agencies. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the honourable Member's comments. We're aware of the issue with respect to the health boards, the administrative and honorarium costs, and generally the whole relationship of health boards as it relates to community empowerment. This is one of the areas, through the community empowerment initiative. We are taking a serious look at how these boards would make their linkages with communities so that they could be more representative, or able to have a stronger relationship with the municipalities which their board members represent.

In respect to the wages and benefits for women's shelters, this has been an historical problem. Although I can emphasize with the workers this is a difficult issue to deal with overnight in light of our fiscal situation, we are hoping that through the transfer of many of these facilities to the municipal governments that they have that flexibility to deal with the employees on a longer term basis. When they put together their community priorities they should be able to spread the resources as they feel their own priorities determine. I would hope these types of facilities would receive their due recognition. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I respect and understand what the Minister is saying. Hopefully in some jurisdictions where the municipal governments take over the shelters will be good. As we know, in many cases, non-profit societies are running these shelters. On the area of professional development, is the Minister still committed to helping the staff with professional development, and helping with their stressful situations?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I recognize the need for professional development. We are planning on addressing this through our human resource development plan. We want to provide as much support as possible to all health and social workers. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The honourable Member brings up numerous points. I'll respond to them as best I can. With respect to legislation for child welfare and adoption legislation, we're planning to put this forward to the House this fall; we've recognized the importance of this. As the Member said, it has been worked on for the past several years. This has been a priority of the department and will be coming forward.

With respect to the financial information, FIS and ORMED, there are different systems. Although we recognize there are two different systems, we are trying to work on establishing a basic information system where one system can correlate with the other without having to totally revise one or the other in order to be able to access information between ORMED and other boards who use a different system.

Regarding the privatization initiative of Trailcross; as the Member knows, we've been keeping him informed on the progress to date. We've advised the employees of the intentions regarding Trailcross. We will be continuing to work with the Member and the community to make sure that the impact of this is minimal.

Regarding the Member's comments on business plan targets and the possibility of slippage, we recognize this. It is something which we are fully aware of. We plan on keeping a close monitor of the situation and having to adjust, if necessary, during the course of the year, some of our business plan initiatives or programs, if required, to make sure that we meet our targets we've been assigned. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

(Translation) Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a few words I'd like to share. I'm very grateful we have treatment centres in our homeland. These are very helpful. I'm grateful for these facilities. I would like to see this as being an ongoing process. It is very important for people to get healed. Regarding the women's centres, I know we will not have enough resources to run these centres in the future, especially the women's shelters. When women are sent to shelters there is a mistake made at times. You are unable to speak to that certain person and they cannot speak to anybody. They have to leave the community. The victim has to leave the community. They must leave their children behind. Sometimes they are able to take their babies with them. I feel the offender should be the one sent out of the community instead of sending the women away. If the men are the offenders, then they should be sent away. I feel this would be much better because it is the children who are suffering most of all when this happens. At times they leave them with relatives -- usually the grandparents -- and they must suffer along with their grandchildren. I feel that if we start thinking of counsellors in the community instead of paying a victim's way out of the community, we can appoint certain people to do the counselling or to review who should be going out to the shelters. I think we could be saving a lot of money if we use the proper human resources. I feel that this is very important.

For the people who commit suicide, is there any kind of review that we could do? Is it alcohol that is causing suicides or is it drugs? When you mix alcohol and drugs, maybe this is the reason. I always question what causes it. When I was young, it was very scary to even think about death. In the past, the elders have done that; but today it is completely different. When the elders start feeling useless, this is what happened in the past. I always wonder or question what causes suicide. Do they start having hallucinations or what is it? Maybe it's from movies where they kill each other. Has there even been a survey done? This is not really a question, this just worries me a lot. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.