This is page numbers 4555 - 4576 of the Hansard for the 16th Assembly, 5th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was health.

Topics

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Justice, Mr. Lafferty.

Jackson Lafferty

Jackson Lafferty Minister of Justice

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We do have contacts with the Alberta Hospital when it comes to assessments. Not only that, we do have a staff on hand that is a counsellor training to be a psychologist in that respect within a year. Once that individual obtains credentials, that individual will fulfill that position. It’s a current position that we have. We are making progress in this line of work. It has been taking some time, but we wanted to find the right individual with the right credentials to fulfill the position. We are moving forward on this.

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Kam Lake

In order to be a clinical psychologist you’ve got to spend seven to eight years in university. I don’t know how the Minister can suggest that a staff person out there could get the requisite training in a year to perform those types of duties. That makes absolutely no sense. I’d

like to ask the Minister, if they’re making progress, why did it take 11 months for this recent sex offender to get a psychiatric assessment done in Alberta? It took 11 months. I’d like to know why.

Jackson Lafferty

Jackson Lafferty Minister of Justice

I cannot comment on specifics to this inmate because it’s before court proceedings. However, I can speak to the process itself. Since this process came to our attention, it is the responsibility of counsel to notify the RCMP, which in this particular case did not happen for various reasons. At the same time, we deal with Alberta Hospital. At Alberta Hospital there is a long wait list which Alberta Hospital provided to our attention as well. We have to keep in mind that there is a new process in place since the issue came to our attention. Copies of the psychiatric assessment are to be sent to RCMP, Alberta Hospital and both counsels so that we can have an efficient and effective way of dealing with these matters to remedy the situation. We are also developing a new protocol to work with Health and Social Services, my colleague Ms. Sandy Lee, on identifying the beds that are available. We are making progress in this respect.

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Kam Lake

I thank the Minister for that. We haven’t had a clinical psychologist on staff at North Slave Correctional Centre for at least the past 18 months. I’d like to ask the Minister, the decision to not have a clinical psychologist on staff, was that a budget decision or an operational decision that was made?

Jackson Lafferty

Jackson Lafferty Minister of Justice

When we had to make a decision at that time, it was strictly an operational one that we made last year.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

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

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Kam Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m just wondering if the Minister is able to let us know how many more inmates currently on remand are awaiting psychiatric assessments and how long they’ve been waiting.

Jackson Lafferty

Jackson Lafferty Minister of Justice

I need to go back to my department and the court ruling. We can probably provide a number. So we can certainly provide those numbers. Whatever we can share with the Members we will.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My Member’s statement had to do with mothers and grandmothers. I want to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services, I know the previous government had a council of grandmothers and I thought that was a wonderful idea. I want to ask the

Minister of Health and Social Services if that’s something she would be interested in initiating or looking at, having a discussion on starting up the council of grandmothers again with this government.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

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

Sandy Lee

Sandy Lee Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was here when the former Minister of Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen, came up with the idea, which I thought was a great idea until it got outside of the building. Then we ran into problems because there are lots of people out there who feel that they’re grandmothers should belong to this group. Of course, we can’t have all the grandmothers meeting in a group all the time of that size.

My approach has been to work with the NWT Seniors’ Society, which is a group made up of elders from across the Territories, big and small. There are about six, seven or eight members who meet at the same time. They have invited me quite regularly to talk to me about seniors’ issues that they are working on that they would like me to work on.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

With the council of grandmothers and the NWT Seniors’ Society, that is apples and oranges. I want to talk more about the oranges as the council of grandmothers and their value. Would the Minister consider, besides identifying the problems, what opportunities or positive things you can see that could come from a council of grandmothers to guide us in the Assembly.

Sandy Lee

Sandy Lee Range Lake

I’m not sure if those are apples and oranges or peaches and cream.

---Laughter

The NWT Seniors’ Society is made up of Mr. Tom Wilson as president, from Fort Simpson, and Florence Barnaby, Bea Campbell, and we had a new member from Tuktoyaktuk that was appointed, and Eileen Collins from Hay River, and Leon Peterson from Fort Smith. They are really well-regarded and well-respected grandmothers and grandfathers from all over the Territories. It is a really good group.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

I certainly agree with the Minister about the NWT Seniors’ Society representatives. These are grandparents from across the Northwest Territories. I do want to focus on a council of grandmothers. Grandmothers have a special role in the community and lives in childrearing and bringing up the children and laying out the foundation. Does the Minister have a willingness to look at even one from each region in the role of a council of grandmothers during this Legislature or even with the department? Would the

Minister be interested in seeing if this is an initiative she would undertake?

Sandy Lee

Sandy Lee Range Lake

On the substance of it I do feel that’s what the NWT Seniors’ Society and other elders that we work with I believe fulfill that function. If the Member has a more specific proposal or idea that he wants to discuss further, I’d be happy to sit down with him and listen to him and perhaps other Members. But there is no question that in our day-to-day work that we do rely on elders, not only grandmothers but grandfathers and leaders of our communities, to help us do our work.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Jane Groenewegen

Jane Groenewegen Hay River South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement today I was talking about the fact that in the Northwest Territories it is natural, it is common, and it is a good thing that family members, extended family members will intervene in a situation where a child may be at risk, a family may be in crisis. It is not always the government that has the opportunity to observe or respond to those kinds of needs. The problem is that when someone does this on their own initiative, it then absolves the government of having to take any responsibility for the situation. The reality is it costs money and takes resources to care for a child.

I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services what recognition do the policies of the Department of Health and Social Services place on the intervention and care that are provided to extended family members by grandmothers, aunties, cousins, when a child is in need outside of their own home. What recognition does this department give to those care providers?

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Sandy Lee

Sandy Lee Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In our policy and practice we give a lot of recognition to family members, extended families. As much as possible we would like the extended families involved. In fact, there are many children in care who are being fostered by extended families and relatives. We do pay them, as we would any other parents or families who take care of the children on a short-term basis or long-term basis. Without knowing the specifics of what the Member is talking about, I can’t get into the details and we wouldn’t do that here anyway. In general, we do recognize family members to a significant degree.

Jane Groenewegen

Jane Groenewegen Hay River South

For the benefit of the people who are listening to this, and I would like to understand a bit more what the process is, if a family member becomes involved in the care of a child and that is not through a formal apprehension of that child, how would the caregiver go about finding the support of this government to act in that role?

Sandy Lee

Sandy Lee Range Lake

When a family who is going through distress or, for some reason, are not able to provide safety and protection to a child, the social workers will work to see where else they can find support within the community. They would look to the extended families like grandparents or aunts or any other family members that could give that support. Obviously, we have more stats for those children who have to be taken out of the family setting and we would first look to extended families to take care of those children. We would look for families within the community and when they are assigned with those families, we would provide financial support for the families who would take care of their extended families. Thank you.

Jane Groenewegen

Jane Groenewegen Hay River South

Mr. Speaker, it’s interesting, because I have been approached over my years as MLA many times by grandparents, particularly, and in the case of a person I met with on the weekend, it was an auntie who felt that they had to take it upon themselves to intervene in a situation for the safety of a child that was related to them. How subjective is the need for intervention on the part of child protection workers? How subjective is that grounds for intervention? Thank you.

Sandy Lee

Sandy Lee Range Lake

The standard is the best interests of the child. We know that a lot could be put into that, but whenever a child protection worker intervenes, they have to justify and answer for it and there are a group of people that are working on that. I think, in this case, what would be helpful is if I could have a private discussion with the Member. Perhaps this family is not aware of all the support that they can get, and I’d be happy to work with the Member to help this family if we can. But, really, I am aware and I could give the Member stats on the fact that our system really works to work with extended families in providing support to the children in need. Thank you.