Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If the Minister maybe could give me the number of children that are under permanent custody, which basically makes them a ward of the state. I would like to know how many children are in permanent custody under this program.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Out of 622 children, 217 are under permanent custody. Thank you.

The reason I asked the question in regard to these children being in permanent custody, I know in my riding, several of these individuals who were in permanent custody found themselves getting in trouble with the law and as soon as they become either young offenders or end up in our correctional system, the Social Services department seems to wash their hands of them and just walk away. Is there any way that this government could be held liable because they are in permanent custody, which makes them a ward of this government and why is that happening? These children are now finding themselves in facilities that are here in the Northwest Territories by way of our jail facilities or, in some cases, are now in southern Canada. So I would like to ask the Minister, what

avenue do these children have after they fall, basically, victim to a system, where they bounce from foster home to foster home and eventually they find themselves dealing with the judicial system? Why is it that this government allows themselves to walk away from these children after they get into trouble?

I can’t say that I know all of the details of the 217 children, but I could tell you that some children in permanent custody are for many reasons in need of highly intense care. Some of them, many of them are in need of one-on-one care. Some of them are victims of severe sexual abuse or sometimes from their immediate families. Sometimes they suffer from FASD or many other situations where they need very intense and sometimes permanent support. That is why many of them are in government custody. And it is true that some of them do end up in corrections services as the years go by, and some of them have to do with the fact that they have become adults and they are no longer in care of the government. But I think it is really hard to generalize what happens, and what has happened, to 217 children that would have brought them into care in the first place. It is really hard to generalize them. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I will use my riding, for instance. There are 33 children in care in my riding. It is costing this government $488,000 for 33 children. That is a lot of money to have kids basically in foster care in my riding. I take offense because I know a lot of these children and their families. It breaks my heart to realize that the families all mean well, but just because they are poor and on income support and basically they don’t an education degree or they are unemployed, makes them bad parents. A lot of it has to do with substance abuse and basically the problems that we see in our communities from being and trying to break that trend. I think we are better off taking that $488,000, give it to the Tl’oondih Healing Society and let them run family programs so that the families, the parents, the children, the grandparents, the siblings can go to a program where they work out their problems for $488,000. That is more an investment and getting a better return on investment than having these kids in care year after year after year. I think, for myself, that is where we should be going in preventing this problem from getting worse and trying to find ways to deal with the outrageous cost of $7.6 million in which a lot of that investment could be made on the families and trying to work this out internally in our communities with the family members and with the resource people we have in our communities than spending $488,000 for 33 children in care in the riding that I represent. We have to look at alternatives to break down this problem and I think

we have to do something different than what we are trying to do today.

It’s a lot of money we are spending in this area and I think that’s something that I feel very strongly about, but I think you will see a difference in the end if we do have such a program dealing with resolving family issues than simply continuing to run through the court system, apprehending children, the cost of the courts and the cost of our social workers, the cost to the communities, the cost to the parents. This is becoming an industry regarding what the residential school was. Again, I make the point that you are probably better off investing that money by way of developing family recovery programs than continuing to expend this type of money. So has the Minister ever thought of developing those programs and investing in family recovery programs versus continuing to keep these children in foster care?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do subscribe to the notion that we need to look at what else we can do from what we are doing now to see if we could prevent the number of children coming into care. In a community like Fort McPherson where there are 18 children, about 11 of them are in permanent custody. But where there are numbers, I think I would be very interested in looking to see what else we could do.

I think it’s really important in our conversations that there are some children in our care who are dealing with things more than simply poor parenting or dealing with parents who have substance issues. We are dealing with some children who have been severely disabled physically and mentally or sexually abused in a very severe way from very early ages. So I think we need to make sure that we understand that there are some children in our care that need serious and very costly intervention. I understand the Member saying that Fort McPherson spends up to $400,000. We have children in care. We spend more than that just on one person because of their severe needs. So I think we have to understand that there are some children who need very, very intense care. I take the Member’s point that we need to work on prevention and we need to involve communities more than what we do now and we should also look at what we can do in our communities to keep the children in the communities as much as possible, whether it be Tl’oondih Healing Society situation or any other. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Lee. I have nobody else on the list. We are on page 8-32 and 8-33, community health programs, grants and contributions, Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Chair, can the Minister give any type of indication as to respite care in my

region as there is none in terms of 24-hour care. I know she’s going to be working probably with some of the health authorities to see when we can see...I am not too comfortable or satisfied that we are going to get an elders facility. That’s a discussion for another time. This is on services and programs we can look at and improve in our region, especially in Colville Lake and other areas. So I just want to ask the Minister if she’s got any type of indication that could shed some light to this issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The in-house respite care is not a 24/7 service, but it’s a service where a family who spends every day taking care of their families, whether it be a child with a disability or a senior who a family has taken care of, it is to give them a break, a time out. The pilot study that was done in Yellowknife, a family has to apply to be on that program and then they get so many hours a week depending on availability or the situation.

We are expanding that program to communities outside of Yellowknife, but the money allocated is about $64,000. So we’ll have to see how...Oh, sorry. I am told it’s $288,000 altogether, but the increase is $64,000. So we‘ll have to work out the details as to how they are going to roll out, but we would work to meet the needs of those who need it the most. Thank you.

I look forward to the Minister’s criteria and requirements to see who gets what under this program. I sure hope once she reviews her criteria and requirements that she looks into areas that do not have other services that the other regions have, so she can balance it out in terms of that criteria. I know it might be a hard one to swallow, because I am surprised that a pilot project happened here in Yellowknife. I think the pilot project should have happened in a community that really needs this type of service. Not knowing all the detail and not knowing all the information, I hope this project expands to regions that certainly need this type of service for the elderly people or people who have disability issues in our communities. It’s a really welcome program; it’s a good program. It’s welcome for the families. I certainly hope the criteria is suited for the people that really need it.

I was simply pointing out that the pilot program in Yellowknife started three or four years back and I think that just showed the need and the value of giving families who are spending everyday, 24/7, taking care of their children in need who are in permanent custody, not temporary. So it just confirmed the value and the importance of the program. Now we are making the decisions to

expand that to other communities. I will work with the officials to see how we can spread the resources around. It would require training of the staff and such. Thank you.

I certainly welcome the Minister’s comments to see how they can use this money in other regions and certainly if you put it into regions like the Sahtu or any other region that certainly needs this program, you always have to look at training. So you can either do training here or training in the small communities. So I think the point is to provide services for people who really need them. Again, if you don’t have those services in some of the small communities, families then have to make trips into larger centres to spend a few days with their children or with the elderly persons. So I think the Minister needs to really look at this again and see what it means to have trained people in the communities. Sometimes the families are so large, you know, they can help other people in the communities. If it needs training, if it needs to be done in the communities, let it get done in the communities with our people. That’s what I am hearing. I may be hearing something different, but I think I am hearing it might be a burden to have it in the small communities because of the training. You have qualified people here; you may need just a little amount of training. So I hope that she keeps an open mind, keeps an open heart, to look at where these services can make a difference in people’s lives in our small communities. That’s what I am hearing, so I guess I am making a plea to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I take the Member’s point. I think the Member might also be referring to home care support and Home Care Program, where the government and the department has to continue to expand because we do want to support families to our people in need of care to stay home as much as possible. That would be made possible whether they are elderly who are being discharged from the hospital or people who need a little bit of assistance to live in their communities. Home care and home support workers to provide that in our communities and we need to expand that service. This is something different from that, and that is just another way of helping our residents who need a little bit of assistance from the government to do what they do best, which is to take care of their own families wherever they can. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I will be very short. I look forward to the Minister’s recommendations and her decisions as to where she can increase support as home care, respite care, for the front-line workers in my communities. Once that report or some decisions are close to being made, I certainly hope the Minister does consider talking to the Members as to her final decisions as to what is

needed. Only then I could tell her how things may be with certain decisions. I am out there to support the people.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. I didn’t hear a question there. I am going to go to Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Also on the same line of questioning in regard to care, especially in our communities. One thing that seems to be lacking in our communities is sort of palliative care where people, basically cancer victims, are told, well, there is nothing much we can do. They send you home and basically they are left to the family to sort of fend for them. I think the government has to have some program in place to assist these individuals when they go back to their communities, assist the families in regard to these costs and whatnot.

If these individuals were taken into care in a care facility or hospital, you are looking at thousands of dollars a day versus these individuals who basically have to maintain not only basic lifestyle and maintain their own families, but they are also taking time out of their work to maintain a family loved one. I think that a lot of communities...It is a lot of stress on the families. It is a lot of stress on the communities. I know that communities try to do their best to take care of people that end up going back to their communities and especially people that need some sort of care.

But one thing also that I really notice in a lot of our smaller communities is people that do have disabilities by way of either they are in a wheelchair and basically try to get into a public housing unit or even into public facilities. Those communities aren’t designed for people with disabilities. I know I’ve raised this question before in the House. What is this government doing to enhance the people with disabilities in small communities to ensure that they also have some sort of quality of life when it comes to their needs, especially when it comes to public facilities? Either it is housing, offices or care facilities even to just get around in a lot of our communities.

Again, I think this government has to do a better job of doing what we can for adult care, regardless if it is palliative care or else looking at disabled people and their care. I think, also, a lot of our people who are seeing the numbers go up in our communities who are suffering from diabetes, which is having effects on their mobility as the disease takes hold. But it is affecting their ability to get around even in their houses and also it affects their mobility. I would like to ask the Minister, are you guys doing anything by way of study, research or investment of this $50 million that can go into communities to deal with some of those types of matters? Thank you.

I don’t know which $50 million the Member is referring to, but the department doesn’t have infrastructure money to help with the access to buildings and such. The department does work very closely with NWT Council of Persons with Disabilities. They are opening branches in Hay River and Inuvik. I understand that does not include all of the small communities, but I do believe it is an organization that has been around for a long time. The more they could branch into regions and smaller communities, the better. A lot of work, whether it is home care or respite care and the palliative care, there is training going on in partnership with IRC and Dene Nation. The Dene Nation just got funding to study palliative care issues. I think it is one that we are going to have to do more and more of. The government will be more involved because as our population ages, the more important it will become for all of our residents, especially our people in smaller communities to be able to be supported to provide these palliative care to support our families in small communities. Thank you.

I don’t want to micromanage the issue, but I would just like to know that I noted in a few different areas that you have that funding to authorities and agencies to provide services to eligible NWT residents including long-term care facilities, group homes, resident care within the NWT. What do you mean by eligible NWT residents? What is the criteria or the eligibility criteria that you are using?

I would think that you would have to be a resident of the NWT to be considered for some of these long-term care facilities. Also what the department is working on is to set up a territorial admission committee made up of different representatives on the board so that we make better use of all of our facilities. For example, we have some facilities where there is a local admission committee. They want to concentrate on admitting patients within that community only when there might be residents from elsewhere who need that facility more. So we are trying to work to streamline that process and set some standards so that residents who need the care are accepted and the decision is somehow based on need as well as location. Thank you.

I just need clarification. I wasn’t talking about $50 million. I was talking about $15.294 million in regard to adult continuing care services. I would like to ask the Minister, could you give me a breakdown of that $15 million in regard to where it is being expended, and also what authorities and agencies are spending that money on behalf of this government?