Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, too, would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. De Clerc and the nurses who have made an effort to stay in the communities, regardless of the conditions they’re working under. They’re short-staffed, they’re short of doctors, but they still make attempts to do their best.

As an organization we’re talking about health care, but there are different types of health care in the Northwest Territories. You have urban health care, in which you have clinics, you have walk-in clinics, you have a major hospital — you can, basically, have lots of NGO support. In the communities in the rural parts of the Territories it is a service that, in some cases, is not even existent. In Tsiigehtchic we don’t have nursing. The basic programs and services are not to be had.

It’s the same thing with mental health and dealing with alcohol and drug programming. We’ve revamped that program to try to make it more accessible throughout the Northwest Territories, but we’ve made it so stringent we cannot find the people to fill those positions in those communities.

A lot of those positions could be provided to deal with alcohol, drugs and mental health issues in those communities. In Fort McPherson some 27 years ago, Mr. Neil Colin and his wife started the alcohol and drug centre on their own, because they felt that someone had to take on that responsibility and let people know there were problems with alcohol in that community. I think people like that have broken the trail to realize that as communities, you can take on more of these responsibilities by just doing something.

As someone who has represented the Mackenzie Delta region for years — ever since I’ve been here, since the 13th Assembly — I don’t think I’ve talked

more about this since the 13th Assembly, until the

Minister was blue in the face.

But yet again, it’s an over-$2-million facility being built. They just built another facility, just outside of Inuvik, for almost $4 million, to help people deal with ailments that could be dealt with at the local level. You don’t have to send people to Yellowknife or Edmonton, or apprehend children and send them away. There’s an opportunity to work with the families, work with the children, in the local region or local community, and find workable programs that meet the needs of the people.

In the North we sometimes have great ideas, but some of these programs and services don’t fit all. We have to have a system in place so you can basically restructure, reformat a program so it meets the need that is unique to that community or that group of people. As a government we talk about community empowerment. I know in the 13th Assembly, that was the big catchword of the day. I believe people had the flexibility, through block-funding agreements, to basically deliver that program as they saw fit by developing a program for themselves.

As a government we talk about the cost of health care. A lot of these issues around health care are preventable. A lot of them originate from alcohol and drugs, substance abuse, health issues related to poor eating habits — things that can be prevented. If we put the focus in that area and — realizing that this is millions of dollars we’re spending in this area — if we just give the tools and the ability to community members by way of healthy living initiatives and whatnot, and also deal with mental health, alcohol and drug issues locally, a lot of these medevac costs, the costs associated with mental health care, can be greatly reduced.

An issue I’ve touched on before is child care, and also wellness of families — wellness of children, wellness of elders and whatnot — in our communities. Communities do take these issues seriously. They’re trying to do what they can; they try to do what’s best. A lot of the time they have a better working relationship with the federal Department of Health than they do with our own Health and Social Services in this government. They receive funds from federal national organizations through Health Canada, through aboriginal funding initiatives in regard to Brighter Futures. I think that trying to work with our government, our regional operations, is frustrating. Little things that could be worked out, and should be worked out, are made so difficult that a simple drive down the road — for two hours, in some cases — is a burden to people in the Inuvik office.

I had an issue around the mental health position in Fort McPherson. I fought for years for that program. It was administered out of Fort McPherson since

1991 with its own internal programs and services. But just in the last couple of months we lost that position, as the person’s moved on. There was very little support from the government for that particular person. If anything, they basically forced the community to finally say, “Enough is enough; let’s hand it back to the government.” Now that responsibility’s being delivered out of Inuvik. For a community with a population of about 1,000 people, we have to depend on mental health services out of Inuvik, which I think is chaotic. We’re going backwards instead of going ahead. We’re talking about self-government; we’re talking about the whole idea of empowering communities.

The other area, again, is that we have these camps in the Inuvik region. We just had a new camp that opened up just outside of Inuvik; they had the Tl’oondih Healing Centre outside of Fort McPherson; they’re working on the Knut Lang camp just outside of Aklavik. The whole intention behind the investments made by these organizations is to find a way to deal with community issues, community problems, outside of the community.

We, as government, have to start working with these organizations, like NGOs here in Yellowknife, in regard to the different organizations that are working hard to deal with their support mechanisms here in Yellowknife. I think that we have to do everything we can to support those organizations.

Again, Mr. Chairman, this government has to come up with a plan to work with these groups and organizations, use the infrastructure that’s there, use the…. Instead of building new infrastructure and whatnot, use what facilities are available.

There has been a bit of talk about the Inuit benefit insurance stuff, which is basically dealing with the federal government. People can’t lose sight of the fact that these programs are underfunded by the federal government. A lot of aboriginal people have been complaining about that for years. We can’t lose sight that yes, it is a federal responsibility, but you have to realize that aboriginal health here in the Northwest Territories is, in some cases, not as high as for the rest of the residents in the Northwest Territories. We have to realize that their needs are probably higher than other people’s and, more importantly, that the money they get from Ottawa, or we get from Ottawa, is not enough. We have to fight that battle with Ottawa and not among ourselves.

In closing, I did touch again on the issue of apprehensions and the amount of money we’re spending in that area. I feel quite strongly that as a government we cannot go back and have the residential school scenario dropped on us again. These children, once they’re taken away from their families and put into a cycle of institutional reform

— in which, basically, they go from one foster care to another foster care to another foster care — become institutionalized into the young offenders system and eventually end up in our court system.

I asked the Minister the other day: what do you do with a child who’s a ward of the state, basically in permanent care of this government, when they turn 18 years old and find themselves in jail? I think the response was, “Well, we’re not responsible for those children after they turn 18.” The problem is that these kids were under your care all through their teenaged life. As soon as they get into trouble and end up in our corrections system, we wash our hands of them. I feel it’s unjust to that person who was taken away from their family, put into that scenario from one foster care home to another and ended up in a corrections facility. To me, that’s exactly what we saw with the residential school scenario.

With that, Mr. Chair, I will be asking the Minister questions in these different areas as we come to them.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mrs. Groenewegen.

I’ll try to be succinct here. I’d like to start off my general comments by also stating that it’s nice to see that the Minister’s engaged and listening to the concerns of the Members. She’s been very proactive in visiting the communities and making herself very aware of the issues that are facing the Health and Social Services Department. I know from experience that this is not an easy department, and yet she seems to be approaching it with some degree of energy and enthusiasm. I have mentioned to several Members — and not to her face, but several other Members — that it’s reassuring to me that we have a Minister who’s very engaged in the issues and who maybe can’t always give us exactly the answers we want but at least knows what we’re talking about when we ask the questions and raise our concerns.

Hay River is very fortunate. We have had a few challenges in the staffing area. Overall, we have had a fairly stable complement of staff in the Hay River health and social services area. We were fortunate to have Greg Cummings down there acting as a public administrator, and he continues to do so today. He helped Hay River through a very difficult time. That was much appreciated. Now, with the arrival of our new CEO, Paul Rosebush, I think we’re on a fairly even keel there.

Mr.

Chairman, the condition of the Hay River

hospital is not good. I would like to have seen the capital for the master redevelopment of the Hay River hospital and Health and Social Services programs that are run out of there sooner in the

capital plan. We have issues with everything from bats to mould to sloping floors to just an ineffective, non-functional layout of our hospital. I would have liked to have seen it earlier on in the capital plan.

The fact that Hay River is outside the GNWT-wide health and social services system is also a challenge. Somebody made reference to it earlier tonight, when somebody may wish to transfer to Hay River. The flexibility is reduced by the fact that it is a separate union, so people can’t transfer their service with their benefits to the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority. That creates some limitations in terms of deploying staff who may wish to….

You know what? I’m just going to stop right there. I have things to say, but I’ll do it at another time. Something I’m saying or doing here is making the Premier laugh, making my colleague and my seatmate laugh, and it’s very distracting and very hard to concentrate. So I’ll save my comments on Health and Social Services for another time. Thanks to the Minister, at least, for listening.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. All right. Thank you for your patience. Minister Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I will try as best I can to be brief and say a few things on the Hay River hospital capital plan. I

believe last year’s development plan was

approved and finalized and submitted by the public administrator, Mr. Cummings, and is going through the planning process.

On the question of all the statements made by Mr.

Krutko: I do appreciate the passion and

commitment he has for the future of the T’loondih Healing Society. I share that with him. As I stated in the Minister’s statement and then in answers in the House, the arrangement we have there is quite temporary. It is a temporary measure until we find, waiting…. We want to hear from the community as to the proposal of it. I don’t mind going back there to meet with the society again, when I have some time, to see if we can work out a proposal. The reason we have service from Inuvik office is that we do need to provide mental health and wellness services to the community of Fort McPherson. Right now the T’loondih Healing Society cannot do that.

Also, I just want to mention that in between sessions, I have had the good fortune of travelling to all the communities in Nahendeh, Beaufort-Delta and Fort Resolution, and Hay River a couple of times. I’m just really struck by the difficulties these authorities have and the challenges they face, especially in Nahendeh, Deh Cho region and the Beaufort-Delta, in terms of providing health care services to communities that are so scattered. I do think that the staff and the health care and social

services staff we have in the regions are doing a tremendous job. Obviously, there are always day-to-day, case-by-case issues that we need to address.

Because there were so many questions and comments made by Members on Stanton — I guess that’s not surprising, because we do have five Regular Members from Yellowknife — I just want to say that I agree with Mr. Ramsay in that the Stanton Territorial Hospital master development plan is very much within the responsibility of this Assembly and of me as the Minister. I think what’s going on outside of Stanton has an impact on the master development for the Stanton Territorial Hospital development plan. For example, the territorial dementia facility and the consolidated clinic that’s being proposed in this budget and that we need to proceed with to pass this budget has as much impact on how the capital plan or space plan of Stanton will be.

For example, right now there are, I think, up to 18 patients in extended care who could actually be moved out of there and moved into the territorial dementia facility. That is a use of the hospital that we could be doing without.

Also, the consolidated primary clinic would be such an essential addition to how the programs are being delivered. That will have an impact on use of the space and the human resources in the emergency section, even diagnostic imaging work that’s being done at the hospital. The plan is that some of that work will be done at the clinic.

The midwifery program, the counselling program…. Right now, Great Slave Clinic in Yellowknife has been a little bit of a mini-consolidated clinic. The plan for the big one is that we’ll be able to consolidate four clinics and put them into the consolidated clinic and be better able to use the resources and spaces and all the other issues that go with that.

I want to comment on the newspapers, because it is really unfortunate. The NP policy that we have has been a little bit misunderstood in light of what’s happened or some of the coverage and public exposure that the two NP positions at the hospital have received of late. I want to tell you that the training of nurse practitioners, hiring, recruiting and retaining them is a key piece to our future health care delivery system. I’ve had occasion to meet the newly trained NP of Fort McPherson and Yellowknife Health and Social Services authority, for example. I think Fort Resolution has newly trained NPs too. So it’s a practice that we need to continue to do more of. It’s just that I think the recent situation at the hospital might have made it sound like we may not be as…. It’s an anomaly, I think, and I don’t necessarily agree that the fix we have there is a short-term situation. What

happened at Stanton with the NPs reminds us that we need to work more closely and do better planning and implementation. We need to make sure that all different parties are talking to each other and making sure our NPs are placed. Although we did receive one-time funding or temporary funding from the federal government to implement these NP positions, the plan was always to incorporate these NPs into the operation. In order to do that, we need the health authorities, all the practitioners that work with them, the management, the workers, and everybody to work together to incorporate them.

I could advise the Members here that the department and I myself are committed to the future of NPs as an essential part of our health care delivery system. We may not be able to have all the NPs placed exactly where some NPs might want to be, but there’s no question that we will continue to use and place NPs in primary care settings, and that is a very important part of our work.

Mr.

Chairman, I took very detailed notes of

everything all the Members have said. I think all these are going to come back in our line-by-line questioning, and I’d be happy to provide more detail. With that, I’m just going to end my response to general comments there, although I have to say that I want to thank Mr. Hawkins for the good words he gave about the capital projects that we moved on the territorial dementia facility and the consolidated primary clinic in Yellowknife. It appears that it may take me nine weeks to respond to a letter, but it only took me seven months to get these projects on the books. I’ll make sure that he’s invited for a photo opportunity when they finally open. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Minister Lee. Does the committee agree that there are no further general comments? Mrs. Groenewegen.

Motion that we report progress, Mr. Chairman.

A motion is on the floor to report progress. The motion is in order and is non-debatable.

Motion carried.

I will now rise and report progress. Thank you, Minister Lee, and thank you, witnesses. Mr.

Sergeant-in-Arms, please

escort the witnesses out of the Chamber. Thank you very much.

The House resumed.

Can I have the report of the Committee of the Whole, please. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your committee has been considering Tabled Document 37-16(2); Main Estimates 2008–2009, Volumes I and 2; and Committee Report 6-16(2) and would like to report progress with four motions being adopted. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of the Committee of the Whole be concurred with.

Thank you, Mr.

Abernethy. The

motion is on the floor. Do we have a seconder? The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Motion carried.

Item 22, third reading of bills. Mr. Clerk, Item 23, Orders of the Day.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until Wednesday, June 4, 2008, at 1:30 p.m.

The House adjourned at 8:40 p.m.