Thank you, Madam Chairperson. We do recognize this as an issue. Different boards are at different levels in respect to their capabilities, their knowledge of the responsibilities, how to carry out their responsibilities in relation to the people they serve, the CEO and the senior management of the regional health and social services boards. Over the past couple of years there has been a significant effort of all boards in trying to undertake trustee development through the NWT Health Care Association.
As noted in the past, Mr. Tony Chang, a former chair of the Stanton Regional Health Board, does undertake a significant amount of board development throughout the Northwest Territories from east to west. He works on the carver model, as it is called, and it clearly distinguishes between a board trustee's responsibility of making policy, setting direction for the CEO to carry out and having the awareness of the day-to-day operational functions are in the realm of the responsibility of the CEO and the senior staff but not board responsibilities. Having said that, we recognize that certainly a large majority, if not all of board trustees, when they come in have no background or no significant background in Health and Social Services. It is safe to say, they have a legitimate interest in that field otherwise they would not have put forward their names for consideration as a trustee. I would like to think they had some broad support from the group or the community they represent in putting forward their name to represent the interest of their community and of the regional health and social services board in trying to provide programs for their constituents. It is an area of board trustee development that we are continuing to work with the health care association, on in trying to firm up and coordinate and standardize some of the training so that it is consistent. We do recognize there are some individuals who are probably lacking as a result of turnovers. That is going to happen when you have as many boards as we do and as many trustees as we do across the territories. Overall, there has been a lot of progress made in trustee development. I can see it when I meet with the boards.
I recall one of the first Beaufort Delta Leaders meetings when I first became Minister. There was concern about the Inuvik Regional Health and Social Services Board at the time. The issue I mentioned yesterday about how large the board was, how ineffective it was, what could we do about it and what powers did they really have? I express to the Beaufort Delta leaders at that time, they basically do the delivery of health and social services in the programs they service for the whole Inuvik area. These trustees make those decisions. It caught the attention of the leaders and they recognized they had, not to say they were not capable individuals before that, to put forward individuals they knew would directly represent them. They also dealt with the issue of trying to make the board more effective by downscaling it to make it a smaller group who they thought would represent their interest. Since that time they have made tremendous progress as we do not hear very many, if at all, major issues come out of the Inuvik area in respect to the services being provided under the leadership of the trustees there, Madam Chairperson. Thank you.