Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services and follow up on my Member’s statement from earlier today.

The licensing requirements for nurses, physicians, pharmacists, midwives, and all those other type of related professions are already highly harmonized between NWT and provincial requirements across Canada. As such, changes to the Enhanced Labour Mobility Agreement won’t have a negative impact on these professions. However, that’s not true for all of the professions. Has the Department of Health and Social Services investigated the impact of the Enhanced Labour Mobility Agreement on unregulated health professions in the Northwest Territories?

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Yes, Mr. Speaker. Thank you. The department has reviewed the implications of that Labour Mobility Agreement and our analysis doesn’t suggest that agreement will have any impact on the unregulated professions in the territories or regulated professions in the NWT. It just allows better mobility of the people between jurisdictions and allows each jurisdiction to recognize the licensed professions from other jurisdictions, which is already done anyway. This just makes it more formal and easier.

I agree with the regulated professions that it’s actually going to expedite things and make things easier, but I’m still not convinced that for unregulated professionals it is going to make that easier. For instance, if you have a chiropractor in the South who wants to come and practice in the Northwest Territories and he’s licensed through a southern institution or southern licensing body to come here where there is no licensing, it’s going to be less appealing because his criteria or his qualifications and licence won’t necessarily be recognized.

I’m curious, for instance, just as another example, in the Northwest Territories we have midwives. I mean, nurse practitioners. To be a nurse practitioner in the Northwest Territories you can go through an Aurora College program which you can get into with a diploma. In the South you pretty much have to have a master’s degree to get an NP designation. How is something like that going to work on the way out? For nurse practitioners who want to look south for employment and nurse practitioners who want to look north for

employment, how does the lack of consistency between the mobility agreement affect our nurse practitioners?

The Department of Health and Social Services regulates about 13 health related professions in the Territories by way of 12 legislations. The NWT is a very small jurisdiction. So even when we have enabling legislation what they usually do is we recognize the licenses or whatever certification the other provinces recognize in our territories. That is the case for doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, or any other legislation. So if we work to have a legislation for, say, massage therapists, the changes are what we would do is facilitate recognition of those professions as they are recognized in other professions. So most of our enabling legislation is facilitating what is already recognized. So any chiropractor recognized in another province would be recognized here in the same way.

I hear what the Minister is saying. However, in talking with a bunch of the professionals in unregulated professions they still have some concerns about this mobility as a result of this Labour Mobility Agreement. In light of the ratification of the enhanced Labour Mobility Agreement, would the Minister of Health and Social Services commit to reconsider their legislative priorities and move forward with umbrella legislation for unregulated health professionals in the Northwest Territories? This legislation would add comfort and would ensure that the currently unregulated health professionals interested in coming to the Northwest Territories can have their credentials recognized in the NWT and similar for those individuals leaving to all jurisdictions in Canada.

With or without the Labour Mobility Agreement and its implications to us, I think I am aware and have met with the massage therapists who would like to have their profession regulated in the territories. Their numbers are very tiny. As I mentioned to the Member earlier and in the House, we are looking to see how we could either regulate that profession or do it by way of alone or under umbrella legislation. There is about 50 pieces of legislation working its way through our government system. Eight of them are health and social services items and one of the eight is the massage therapy profession.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is directed to the Minister responsible for income support, the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

In my statement I made reference to two situations where two elderly ladies found themselves as widows trying to maintain their own homes and lifestyle. They are not getting any assistance from this government by way of income support or fuel subsidy. With regard to one case, with the cost of power in our communities, their monthly power bill is $390 per month. Yet they’re just barely making it with $1,000 a month pension they receive.

I’d like to ask the Minister what we are doing to increase the thresholds to ensure elders have fuel in their homes to heat them during the winter months and not disallow them access to these programs. Are we re-profiling the programs to make them more accessible for elders? Elders who live in public housing pay $20 a month.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Certainly we do provide various subsidy programs to the people of the Northwest Territories. Specifically for the seniors, there is a seniors' fuel subsidy that we offer and we’ve also made some changes, amendments to our program where we’ve increased income threshold to $10,000 additional as of April 1st , 2008. So every now and then we

meet with the elders and identify what the Member is alluding to here today. It’s one of those areas that we listen to and make changes as needed. We have done that to one program where the income threshold has been changed. Certainly we continue to work with the communities we have and the seniors to look after them.

It’s one thing to increase the income threshold by $10,000, but what you’re doing is putting people in a different class of fuel that they receive. I believe it’s 400 litres that they receive. If you increase their income by $10,000 they receive 400 litres to get them through the whole winter. That’s not even one-tenth of a tank. I think it’s important to realize that we have to have a system that really improves the lives of seniors in our communities and really makes a difference in their lifestyle so they don’t have to move out of their homes and go into social housing.

I’d like to ask the Minister if he will seriously take a look at different communities in the Northwest Territories, the real cost of living, and ensure that

the programs we’re delivering really make a difference in those communities.

Certainly right now the current stage is there is different zoning. Individuals, the seniors living in Paulatuk or in Aklavik versus the southern part of the Northwest Territories, there’s a different category. Seniors who live in the High Arctic, like the Beaufort-Delta as an example, will definitely get more increase in their income threshold. There are different zones. We have made changes there. We continue, like I said, to make these changes as needed, based on what we hear from the seniors and the MLAs. We do continue to look at those and I will continue to look into these subsidy programs that we have. If there are any changes to be made, we’ll certainly seriously consider it.

I think also this government, I know it was recognized previously, has to take a close look at how we do the assessments on these seniors. What these seniors are stuck with is that they have family members living with them who may work in the summer months during the construction season, but because they are using the household income they are disqualified from seniors programs. Yet the only time they receive a fuel subsidy is in the winter months.

I’d like to ask the Minister if he would look at the possibility of classifying these programs as seasonal programs for those winter months and calculate it on those winter months when that fuel is being used to heat the home. Between October and April or whatever. I’d like to ask the Minister if he would consider looking at something like that so the seniors are not penalized because some activity has taken place in their homes during the summer months.

Certainly penalizing our elders and our seniors is not one of our mandates. We are there for them. We’d like to provide more subsidies as we can. Certainly there are reviews being undertaken on how to deal with the subsidies for seniors. We realize there are family members living with their grandmothers or grandparents and some, unfortunately, are taking advantage of the system. Some are working at the mines and are not claiming their household income. That does have an impact on the seniors from that perspective. At the same time, I’ve instructed my department to find out how we can work around the system where we don’t penalize the elders or seniors. Looking after those individuals who could be making $90,000 or $100,000 a year; let’s focus on them. Certainly Members have asked if we look at this overall review on the seniors’ perspective and we are doing that right now.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Like I stated, using this elder’s income, her pension alone is about $1,000 a month. It works out to about $12,000 a year. This senior cannot get any support from this government because she made $12,000 from her pension. That is discrimination on the basis of a senior who is trying to maintain a home, yet someone living in social housing is costing this government $20,000 a year. There has to be a fairer process with regard to the seniors in our communities, especially in our high-cost communities where they have a $390-a-month bill. I’d like to ask the Minister if he can do something specially for those communities that are isolated where we have high-cost communities to find a way that we’re not totally putting our seniors out in the cold because they made $12,000 in their pensions and are not getting any help from this government. What can the Minister do about that?

The pensioner, whether it be the $12,000 or other figures that may be out there, there are certain household income thresholds that we have to deal with. But if it’s correct, that $12,000, then the senior should qualify for subsidy unless there is other household income within the home. It’s on a case-by-case basis, but certainly I did commit already that we are looking at reviewing our subsidy program specifically for seniors. I will be coming back to the standing committee to give them an update of any changes that will be undertaken.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My questions are addressed to the Premier in the absence of the Minister of ENR today. I spoke in my Member’s statement about what we can do as a government for the environment. I’d like to ask the Premier what currently exists for the GNWT in regard to limiting the use of disposable products in our buildings and in our activities.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do have a number of programs that are run during an office spaces posting; notices about recycling, reuse. The message is being sent out there by ENR. As for actual policies about what the Member raised in her Member’s statement, I’d have

to go back to the Minister and get that information and have that provided to the Member.

I thank the Premier for advising that he’ll get back to me. I talked in my statement about getting started and I’d like to know whether or not we can get started. Is the Premier willing to look at putting a policy in place which would stem the tide of non-disposable items?

We’d be prepared to look at the suggestion that the Member has made and get back to her and Members to see what possibilities there are that we could look at and may put in place.