Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Also the issue in terms of home care, I just want to swing it over to the seniors in terms of the seniors' facility in Deline. I know there's been some discussion there, and just for the Minister to know that the people in Deline are somewhat anxiously awaiting to see the type of plans are going to be implemented into occupying or using that old seniors' facility that was built in Deline sometime in '93. Can the Minister, just for the record, indicate as to what type of plans his department has in terms of putting that facility to use and as to what deadline it will be ready to have funding there for the use of that facility? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, over the last number of months there was a committee struck involving representatives from Health and Social Services, Housing Corporation, the community of Deline, and the Sahtu health and social services, to look at the uses for the Deline facility. At the end of this exercise, it was recommended two things. That based on the work of that committee, and as well a review that was done of all the seniors in the regions, that we should look at trying to improve home care, which was the first request of all the seniors, and we should look at trying to use the Deline facility as an office space to bring together the community wellness programs in the community. That report with their recommendations went to ourselves, Housing, and back to the community of Deline, which agreed to those recommendations. The issue now at hand is the fact that to do that will require a significant amount of money, in the neighbourhood of a million dollars or so. So there were two choices: we could either wait for the regular capital planning process in '07-08, or we could attempt to talk to the Housing Corporation and work out an arrangement possibly where they would do the tenant improvements and there would be a lease arrangement from Health and Social Services, and that is what has happened on the 14th of February. Madam Chair, with your indulgence, I'll let the deputy, who was at that meeting, speak to the detail. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Murray.

Thank you, Mr. Murray. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The people in Deline will be pleased to hear that there's progress being made on this facility that will be put to good use and that there are two phases to seeing the full utilization of this facility and the programs that are going to be running out of this building here. So I look forward to more concrete initiatives when you get closer to the dates, as you indicated, Minister and also deputy minister.

Madam Chair, I want to talk to the Minister about the disability issues. In our region there seems to be some concern in terms of the people who are living with a disability, mainly the wheelchair access people. Some of them don't have ramps in their homes. Some of them have concerns that these ramps are not being put into play because they don't know if it's a housing issue or a Health and Social Services issue and they want to know what type of assessments and what type of programs and service delivery there are. Who checks on these people who are disabled? Not only for wheelchairs, but elders. There's an elder that told me she needs to have a step up to her tub and right now it's pretty dangerous for her. She's 84 years old and it's pretty dangerous for her to take a bath. She says she's going to fall in and doesn't know if she can get out. So these little simple things that we overlook sometimes, but when the elders are concerned about services that are provided to them it doesn't seem to go very far. Same as that Charlie Gully, who is an elder in Fort Good Hope and desperately needs a ramp on his house. But there are other people who speak about disabilities, so I want to ask the Minister in terms of how do we know for sure that these people who have disabilities are being heard, number one, and that their places are being considered or assessed for some type of improvement to make their life easier? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, in regards to the issue of the ramps and the outside access, my understanding is that the Housing Corporation has programs available to assist homeowners and individuals requiring that service to get that service. In regards to support within the home, if it's bars or steps or other such equipment, then the home care workers, home support workers, and the social workers, possibly the nurses if they're doing any kind of visits, would identify those kind of needs and we would work with those individuals to try to make sure that they have those services. As well, I'd like to point out that we are also going to be enhancing our contribution, both to the seniors and the disabled, by $100,000 each this year for the next five years as part of the territorial health access fund and we're going to be meeting to try to make sure that money's allocated in a way that other communities or that all communities can have a chance to access some of that on a required basis. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Good news, Minister, in terms of putting new money towards the seniors and the disabled citizens in terms of enhancement.

I just want to speak on the home care. As the Minister has indicated, the home care workers and the social workers, lack the efficient time to go into these homes and do a proper job. They go in there, they probably spend, what, 15, 20 minutes at the most, and then they have to go to another home. They don't really do a proper assessment or a proper identification, or they're so busy that they sometimes overlook or forget or just don't take care of what's needed in the senior's home.

My aunt is a senior who has this tub issue. It's over a year now and still nothing's been done about Ernestine Lenny, her house in terms of building up a ramp to her bath. So these are the ones that I guess I want to talk to the Minister about, Madam Chair, are the home care workers. Because of the amount of work that they do, I want to ask the Minister, would he consider, with his department, hiring these retired CHRs in our region that have 30 years plus, who are looking after people, who have done the work in the past, that they would put together a training program for these young CHRs as the old CHRs can be instructors to teach the young ones how to work properly with the older people? Translation, elderly care, what the elders look for. Not just to come into their house, do a quick mop-up job on the floor. They don't even do a proper house cleaning. So would the old CHRs be put to use? Because a lot of people still consider them as employees of the Health and Social Services, so they could help the young CHRs. I guess proper training for our young CHRs to identify needs and ask the old CHRs to come in to assist the workforce that the CHRs have to do. In a roundabout way, Madam Chair, I'm hoping that the Minister could figure out what I'm asking for and answer these questions.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I'll commit that we will, we already provide CHR training, but I will commit that we will make sure that we look at ways to incorporate the skills and experience and accumulated knowledge of those CHRs that have gone before into the program to help give the CHRs being trained the benefit of that advice and experience. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Yakeleya's time is up. I'm sorry that I called you Mr. Menicoche. I was confused, too. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a question for the Minister in terms of on program delivery support in terms of the amount of money that the Government of the Northwest Territories spends and has spent in the past on the professional development and recruitment and retention of frontline health care workers. The professional development I don't necessarily have an issue with. I think that's money well spent and I think the more that we have, the better. What I have issue with is the money that we're spending on the recruitment and retention because, as I mentioned to the Minister last week, I don't really see evidence of there being much success in that area. We continue to bring in locum nurses from the south, agency nurses. They work alongside of nurses in our health care system and earn more in benefits and rate of pay than the nurses that we have here on the ground. Something about that is not quite right, if you ask me, Madam Chair. I'd like to ask the Minister, what type of benchmarks or performance measurement indicators does he and his department have that would lend itself to justify the amount of money we're spending? If we just keep spending money year after year and we're not making any progress, then one would have to question what we're doing. Is something in his system, in his department, broken and in need of repair? For example, in 2004-2005 this government spent about $4 million in this area and I'm not sure why. I guess that's another question the Minister could answer, but why has that number been cut in half to $2 million? What are we

getting and how do we measure the success of this expenditure? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. What we need and what every other jurisdiction needs across Canada and North America, for that matter, is more trained, qualified nurses. We're going to have, this spring, 20 to 24 nurses graduating from Aurora College with their degrees as nurses that we will be able to put to use, each and every one of them. As well, from hereon in we expect to be able to be graduating hopefully double-digit graduating classes for the foreseeable future as we continue our investment. There were decisions made back in 1992 nationally that affected dramatically the number of seats available for nurses and doctors, where it was determined by the people at the time that there was going to be some kind of glut on the market and that we would best be anticipating that and cutting back. It was a decision that turned out to be very wrong and we've been trying to recover since then.

These are investments that are long-term investments that take time to show progress. I acknowledge that we have issues in the Northwest Territories hiring nurses. We have an unfortunate reliance on agency nurses, which we're working to correct. But I think the investments that we make in terms of the staff that we do have are good ones. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Ramsay.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I know the Northern Nursing Program is going to be successful. It has been successful and it will certainly give us more nurses going forward. But of the $2 million that's in the main estimates, is the Minister telling me today that the majority of this $2 million goes directly into the Northern Nursing Program? Because that's what he's basing his recruitment and retention strategy on is the Northern Nursing Program. What is this money spent on? What are we getting in return for it? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, there was money, about $2 million worth, that was transferred to the new HR department that's going to be established as part of them taking over the delivery of that service. Madam Chair, I have an extensive list of what the money's spent on, which I could either read to the Member or I'd be happy to share with committee. It was part of, I believe, the package that was sent to the Social Programs committee, but I recognize the Member is not a member of that committee. So I'll take your direction, Madam Chair. I can either just share this information, or I can read it if the Member would like.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Ramsay.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I can just get that at a later time from the Minister for the detail. But again, what I want to get back to is how do we measure performance? How do we know that the money we're spending is achieving the goals that we set out to achieve? If we're hiring more agency nurses, if we're spending more money on agency nurses and locum nurses being brought into the Northwest Territories, then is the expenditure, this magnitude of funds, is it worthwhile? At what point do you have to start questioning the money that you're spending here? Certainly, Madam Chair, it would seem to me that we have to have some type of performance measurement in this area so that we know what we're doing and what we're spending is being worthwhile. Thank you.