It’s not necessarily for small communities, but the communities that have applied for them so far are small communities.

That will be enough on that topic.

Mr. Chairman, under Community Services, there’s a line that says, “Services designated to assist living in the home.” Could the Minister provide a definition of what that title actually means and some examples as to how it’s applied?

That’s money for home care.

I think that will be fine for now.

Thank you,

Mr. Hawkins. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It’s good that I got back, since you cut me off the first time. However, I unfortunately have to go back to the homelessness contribution. Numbers we received through the Standing Committee on Social Programs indicate there’s $200,000 for a Small Community Homelessness Fund. I think the Minister’s officials explained that there’s also a fund to repatriate people who are homeless to their original home community. My question is whether or not that $200,000 is only for small communities, similar to Mr. Hawkins’ question — is there a large community fund as well as a small community fund?

Minister Lee.

The Member is right. This $200,000 does not include the repatriation fund, and this $200,000 fund does apply only to communities outside of Yellowknife, Fort Smith, Inuvik and Hay River. Sorry, I didn’t get that right the last time. We don’t have specific funding for larger communities, because larger communities like, mostly, Yellowknife have NGOs that are established and they get their funding per bed. The Centre for Northern Families, YWCA and Sally Ann get different funding per bed, depending on how those beds are used, either from ECE or Health and Social Services or the homelessness file or Housing too. They get money from the Housing Corporation.

Thank you for that explanation. That helps me out there. I just have one other question, on page 6-36, where it references Community Services and Mental Health Services. Information from last year to this year indicates that funding for the Canadian Mental Health Association has decreased radically, by about $100,000. I wondered if there was something special that went on last year that the Mental Health Association was funded for. If not, can you advise why there’s such a drastic reduction in their funding?

I can tell you we have not decreased any of the NGOs we normally fund, at least, from the department’s point of view; I remember seeing a whole list of NGOs we fund.

We didn’t decrease any of them, but there is a possibility that an organization like Canadian Mental Health may be getting funding from some other government departments too. I’m not saying they’re getting cut, because I can’t speak for other departments and I don’t wish to. I’m just saying for Department of Health, I’m not aware there were any cuts to Canadian Mental Health.

Okay. I wonder if I could ask the Minister then, what amount was the Canadian Mental Health Association funded in ’07–08, please?

I don’t have that information on me. I’ll get that for the Member.

Thank you. That’s good.

Thank you,

Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. A question for the Minister. Perhaps I’ll start by noting that one of the goals of the 16th Assembly is a healthy,

educated people. A priority under that goal is to strengthen regional and local treatment and after-care programs to address addictions and mental health. I’d like to ask the Minister once again: did she instruct her department to strengthen regional and local treatment and after-care programs to address addictions and mental health, and would it be reflected in these pages, 35 and 36? I can take a stab at it myself and see if the Minister might agree, but I’d like to get her take on it.

Thank you,

Mr. Bromley. Minister Lee.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Before I give my take on that to the Member, may I just take one moment to answer a question from Ms. Bisaro? We did find the information on the Canadian Mental Health Association. We fund $127,000 to that organization, and it hasn’t changed. It’s the same this year as it was last year or the year before.

With respect to aftercare, I just want to say — and I know this from having sat through the Social Programs Committee, and I think that information is correct too — aftercare is a part of the whole spectrum of treatment. You cannot separate aftercare to somebody who’s going to Homewood in southern Alberta or to Grande Prairie or to Nats’ejee K’eh. When somebody is suffering from addiction and they make a difficult or good choice of doing something about it, they will go tap into some kind of health care or social program personnel we have. They’ll go to health care or they might talk to their doctor or nurse or counsellor or social worker, and then there’s a whole process they are helped through. There are number of professionals who will decide, working with the

client, what sort of service that person needs, and what service they need or they want. It could be going to AA, or if they’re in a severe situation, then they have to be detoxed at the hospital or they may have to be given medication or they may be eligible to go for two to four weeks to a treatment centre somewhere else.

When they come back, our community wellness workers are in touch with them. That’s part of their job. They keep in touch with them; they give counselling to them. In many of the occasions, like Nats’ejee K’eh or any other treatment program — more institutionalized programming — they will be in touch with the clients as well. From a program perspective as well as a funding perspective, there is no demarcation where this is pre-treatment, this is treatment, this is after-treatment and this is aftercare.

I guess the Member is saying, We have said in our strategic plans that aftercare is important. That is part of our treatment spectrum; that is definitely a part of our mandate and the work the community wellness workers are doing.

Thank you for those definitions of the stages of treatment and so on. I think the Minister was starting to get there when she did highlight that in our discussions we really focused in on the apparent insufficient supply of aftercare, and highlighted again the need to address that with strengthened aftercare services. I’m wondering if we’ve strengthened those services or whether any focus has been brought to bear on that priority.

If the Member wants to know if we have a separate new initiative program set aside for aftercare, that’s not here. I think the Member could take comfort in what I’ve been saying, which is that I am following the mandate given to us by the Caucus on the need for the aftercare programming in the spectrum of treatment programming. We are revising…. I’ve said many times that we’re looking at the job descriptions, duties and activities of mental health addictions specialists as well as community wellness workers. We’re going to look at all 67 positions, look at the community profile. We are committed to working on how we could revise their job descriptions and their interactions with each other to make sure we optimize the work they do to take care of the people who are in need of service — aftercare most obviously being the important part of that.

Thank you to the Minister once again for those remarks. I appreciate that, and I appreciate that there is not a specific program on aftercare.

I notice there are actually a few potential places in the Grants and Contributions that I think is under discussion here that have received some increased

funding. About $332,000 under the first one on page 6-35, and on the next page, an additional $650,000 for mental health and addictions initiatives under community services, and a couple of others that might involve some aftercare services. I’m hoping that perhaps it was covered off under those increases. May I please — perhaps as a last gasp here — ask the Minister if she did ask her department and employees to focus in a bit more, say, on aftercare services?

I have to say I didn’t specifically ask that way, but I can tell you I have been speaking non-stop about the need to revise and review the mental health and addictions and wellness workers’ job descriptions and how we could best serve them. I look forward to coming back with the details of that to the Standing Committee on Social Programs, which the Member is part of.

Thank you, Minister Lee. We are on page 6-35, Activity Summary, Community Health Programs, Grants and Contributions, Contributions.

Department of Health and Social Services,

Activity Summary Community Health Programs, Grants and Contributions, Contributions, approved.

We are on page 6-36, Activity Summary, Community Health Programs, Grants and Contributions — Continued: $58.606 million.

Department of Health and Social Services,

Activity Summary Community Health Programs, Grants and Contributions — Continued: $58.606 million, approved.

We are on page 6-38, information item, Community Health Programs, Active Positions.

Department of Health and Social Services,

Activity Summary, Community Health Programs, Active Positions, information item (page 6-38), approved.