Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member is right; this is a crucial and big emerging issue. It is permeating into all of our program areas. It is not just a long-term care issue.
Seniors population right now -- about 3,500 out of 40,000-plus of the Northwest Territories population -- is the fastest growing segment of our population. It has grown by 54 percent over the last 10 years while the general population only grew by 4 percent. I think that speaks to what challenges and opportunities we are dealing with.
The department, in all program areas, looks at how to support the seniors and how to maintain their healthy living. That has to be a big part as well, as well as looking at their continuum of care. Obviously, institutionalization or the facilities are the last resort. I think that we need to also pay attention to providing home care support and other support, because I think that most seniors want to have an independent healthy life as much as possible. And as much as possible, they want to be in their communities and they want to be taken care of by their own people. That has to be front and centre of our strategy.
We know right now, from the demographics we have, we need to have at least 40 beds of long-term care in the next little while. We are making progress by doing a long-term care facilities review in the Territories and also working on a prototype, so that we can have a ready-made long-term care facility that can be placed wherever, depending on how this House makes the decision on where it should go. There are many different areas that we are working on within the department. Thank you.