Mr. Chairman, the question whether the department or the Minister agree or not is the wrong question and it is not a normal practice for the Member to ask questions directly to the officials. I would answer that this is a major initiative on the part of the government. The government is going out to the public with our consultation paper. All of the Ministers involved have been meeting with anyone who wants to meet with us and their leaders, and we are listening to the people about what they have to say about this proposal. I believe that is what the government has to do. Government is listening and there has not been a decision made. I think that the line of question is premature. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As it relates to costs associated with the proposed board reform initiative, has the department done any costing in regard to human resource requirements or needs as it pertains to the model that is being suggested by the government? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, the work is being done as necessary as we move through this process. As Minister Miltenberger has indicated, and the Member knows, we are gathering information, the documents are out, we are consulting with the people, we are talking with all of the aboriginal governments and we are doing analysis as required, as we move through this stage. Thank you.

Just to clarify the question, has the government done analysis to see what the cost implication of that decision is? Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I did not hear an answer. I don’t want to ask the

same question again. I am going to have to try to rephrase it.

There definitely is going to be a cost associated to the current authorities and to the department in regard to the human resource component on this board reform initiative. Has the department done any costing or financial analysis on what it is going to cost to go to a regional service delivery model? Have they done any work themselves? I am not talking about Mr. Miltenberger; I am talking about the Department of Health. I am not talking about Cabinet. I am talking about you, Minister. Has your department done any work itself? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I don’t think the cost implications necessarily suggest that there will be more cost or, I have to say, I am saying it again, that the Member keeps saying that I am not answering his question, and I am. What I am saying is that the department and the Minister, we are part of the Refocusing Government Committee and we are doing analysis, financial or otherwise, as required at each stage. But we have not gone...We are not at a place where we have to have detailed information, but we are certainly doing analysis as to what this means and in terms of the general picture. We are active participants. We are part of the government. Thank you.

Next on the list I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Chairman, the NWT hospitals under the budget line items, I would like to ask the Minister in terms of the clientele. I know several years ago that the clientele for the hospitals in the Northwest Territories, specifically Stanton, I am not too sure the numbers up in Inuvik, but for Stanton the clientele was at 65 percent of aboriginal patients being in there with 5 percent of programs or services specifically for aboriginal patients. Now, it has been a couple of years.

Now the Member is the Minister of Health, so is that something through her reports that this is improving, the Aboriginal Wellness Program? I know they’ve talked about the food and I heard it the other day, Mr. Chairman, that you really need to look at the food issue in terms of serving the people from the land and their diet. I want to ask the Minister, will we receive a progress report on some of the specific issues with regard to aboriginal programs and services at the Stanton Hospital? If there is 65 percent – it may have changed now – of patients in the hospital, then surely there should be 65 percent of foods served on aboriginal diets. I guess that’s what I am looking at in terms of a progress report from the Minister.

Minister of Health, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That work is being done mostly by the Aboriginal Wellness Program. It took a little bit to get going. In meeting with the elders and the staff involved, I think they were feeling that they had to consider so many things at the same time. I think they are streamlining what they want to work on and I will ask them to...I have already asked them to provide me with a report or some kind of action plan as to what they want to work on first. I would be happy to share that with the Member when I do get them. Thank you.

I look forward to sitting down with the Minister and going through some type of report on this program.

Under 8-23, it has medical equipment under $50,000. I want to ask the Minister if there is any type of discussion or requests from other agencies in terms of defibrillators in small communities that have sport centres where a lot of people play hockey. A lot of people have events that require other team members coming to the communities. There’s lots of hockey played in our region here in terms of tournaments. Is there any type of...I could be totally wrong on this discussion with the other departments to look at first responders in incidents that happen in community events. I know two right now in my region that the first responders weren’t too sure as to what to do. One had a stroke the next day, when he found out, and one went into convulsions. There are other issues here that need to be looked at. So in terms of planning forward, is the Minister, under this budget line item, will she consider the type of proposal or discussion in terms of having defibrillators, for example, at sporting events, cultural events, with a responder to be available? I know that’s a big request, something to think about, but I think it should be given some merit. I am not sure if it’s possible or it falls under this budget line item for under $50,000 for medical equipment. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I can advise the Member that every community now has defibrillators. That was just finished last year and the good thing about the defibrillators is that they are easy to use. It should be very accessible.

In terms of what each community has in terms of responding to community events or a large gathering of crowds, I don’t have detailed information on exactly what the communities have. I would assume that most communities have those. If the Member could provide me with those two communities and information about those two incidents, I would be happy to inquire about that and get back to the Member. Thank you.

I certainly look forward to having some discussions with the Minister outside this House in terms of the particular things I mentioned.

My last question to the Minister in terms of first contact with health centres, I know through some of the issues that we have come up with in the Sahtu and other communities is a first response emergency debriefing team. I know the health authorities are doing their best to have debriefing teams in the region. Certainly we had some support from the department here at headquarters to have some debriefing teams in our region on critical emergency traumatic incidents; however, those are very welcome but they are short lived because they had to go back to the jobs in their communities. Is it possible that through first contact in terms of the budget line items here, that a debriefing team be set up in the Sahtu region with the funding that’s required here in the budget for the Sahtu region? Thank you.

That is part of the work that we provide under our Health and Social Services...We don’t have a specific line item for that, but that’s certainly the services we provide and the authorities do do that on an as-needed basis.

We, as a system in the NWT, are pretty good at responding to tragedies or some crises. I am aware that under some circumstances in Sahtu, we have offered to send a crisis management team to come in and the community have turned it down in some situations. I am aware of that. So it’s really hard to organize a team ready in that not all circumstances are the same. You need to be able to respond to the specific situation with specific group of people with a specific set of skills and background that are necessary to respond to that incident. That is part of our routine work, so to speak. Thank you.

For clarification, the reason why I am asking under this budget line item on the heath centres is that when the request is made, and certainly we appreciate it, however, because of the cultural beliefs or whatever, the request is being not taken by our region. That’s why we are asking if we could do it within our own region, with our people, in our own way with the support of headquarters certainly. But right now, because of some of the crises, I understand from my region. That’s why when they offered, we said it’s okay, we need to have someone come in and speak our language with the old people that are affected. There is no disrespect to the department, but I am saying we have to work within our own culture, within our own language, in our own way how we handle these types of situations. Sometimes an outside person is brought in, sometimes they’re not too sure how things are going and sometimes we have to teach them also. There is no disrespect to professionals

who are coming in. We are saying that we want to have our own emergency debriefing team from our own communities, members who have been trained in drug and alcohol, family violence, sexual abuse, all these traumatic things that have happened in terms of our people. So that’s what I am asking. I am not too sure if the Minister at this time could answer it, but I hope she can work with our health boards in establishing a debriefing team for emergency services that we can rely on ourselves. Thank you.

I understand that and when I said some of the people in Sahtu rejected or declined the emergency response team, those were teams made up of local people. I am not talking about sending outsiders; I’m talking about sometimes we do need to respect communities the way they want to deal with some situations. All I’m saying to the Member is that we have, as a regular practice that we do when there are crises, emergencies, we do try to provide services in any way we can, and, of course, you have to listen to what the local people are asking for. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Next on the list is Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that we report no progress. Thank you.

Can I have clarification of that? Was that progress or...Mrs. Groenewegen.

I move we report progress.

---Carried

I will now rise and report progress.

I’d like to thank the witnesses. With that, Sergeant-at-Arms, could you escort the witnesses out.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Your committee has been considering Tabled Document 11-16(3), NWT Main Estimates 2009-2010, and would like to report progress. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Motion is on the floor. Do we have a seconder? The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

---Carried

Item 23, third reading of bills. Mr. Clerk, Item 24, orders of the day.