It sounds to me as though it’s only a matter of will that’s keeping things from happening, but I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not the department would consider doing a fast-tracking of one amendment to the Child and Family Services Act to cover this particular area.

I could start to move to fast-tracking the amendment, but I do know that there is some cost to moving that age for two years. As an example, I had indicated earlier that we’re working on something which is like that the human rights consider a youth to be somebody that is a youth until they turn 23 years old. We’re looking at that definition as well. We’re looking at that definition, so if we make legislation that allows the individual child to remain in the foster care beyond the age of 16, at which point does the department stop paying for the foster parent to house this individual. If we’re just talking about the gap which is between 16 and 18 that would resolve some issue, there is some cost to it, but a lot of the issues do occur beyond that as well.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One last question to the Minister. He mentioned earlier that legislation is on their list of priorities on their radar. When can we expect to see these legislative changes come forward?

This is one of the things that I’ve been pushing the department on, but because there are so many priorities in the Department of Health and Social Services, it hasn’t received the attention that it needs to receive in order to advance it forward. I will talk to the deputy

minister and attempt to advance this forward as quickly as possible.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I indicated in the House yesterday that we’re going to get the long-term care beds that have been removed from the plan from the new health centre in Hay River into the capital plan as quickly as possible. Hopefully, we will be discussing that through the capital planning process in the next process, but I cannot make a commitment before it’s approved by the Legislative Assembly in this House.

My question was referring to home care workers and what the Minister is doing in terms of home care support, home care services in the community of Hay River. One, there’s a great load of demand and in Inuvik, as well, on the positions that we have, even taking it further into the communities that are going to be affected such as Fort Resolution, Hay River Reserve and the communities that house out of Hay River in the long-term care. What’s his plan of action for the home care services and support in the communities?

We recognize that home care, all types of care that is going out to the seniors has to be enhanced. We recognize that. We’re developing what we’re calling a continuum of care for seniors, which is going to look at everything that’s available as far as infrastructure goes, and what is needed as far as programming goes, and that’s programming like home care, home care coordinators, home care workers, home care support workers and so on, and also trying to

provide some other types of positions into the home care system in order to provide a better service to seniors. We are looking at that and we recognize that there is a bit of a gap in the system. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I think I heard there that the Minister mentioned that he is working on a continuum of care. Is that a report or an action plan? Where is he getting his information from? Is he getting it from the home care workers? Front-line workers? Nurses? Doctors? Who is involved in this continuum of care plan? What kind of input is he getting in that plan? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the Department of Health and Social Services, working with the various health authorities across the Territories, are going to be developing the plan. We have a pretty good idea, from speaking to the people themselves, on what the needs are. We know exactly what we have on the ground. We know what the demands are just by taking a look at the aging population. We know that there are 50 percent or 100 percent more people in between the age of 15 and 65 than there are people over 65. We know this is a huge issue, a looming issue in the department. We are trying to respond to that and try to make some proactive decisions in this whole area of continuing care for elders. We certainly don’t want to get caught unawares. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am just going to go back to this one question again and ask the Minister, what are his immediate plans to address the demand on our home care staff in the communities? What is he willing to do immediately to get those addressed so that it will take the workload off of our workers that are already being overwhelmed in some of our communities, especially the ones without nurses or the ones without the proper infrastructure? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, right now we have a request for proposal that was released this fall, the fall of 2012, that is going to look at that. We are going to look at the current needs and future needs of the clients by community. By March of next year, prior to the next fiscal year, we will have that report. Although we know that this is an issue – we know that it is going to be a huge issue – we don’t exactly know how big. We need to know that by the condition of the people as well. In March 2013, we will have a very good idea of what we are looking at. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 5 on the Order Paper, recognition of visitors in the gallery.

---Unanimous consent granted

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is my pleasure to recognize a constituent of Frame Lake, chair of the Human Rights Commission at the moment, previous Minister in this House, previous representative, my predecessor, I guess. I would like to welcome Mr. Charles Dent.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 7 on the orders of the day, oral questions. Thank you.

---Unanimous consent granted

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Bouchard.

---Laughter

Yesterday I was talking in the context of employee bonuses as well as salaries being publicized. It is one of the particular issues that are being raised in the context of being fair and transparent.

Why do we pay performance bonuses to employees? When you do the math on $1.2 million divided by just over 200 employees receiving those bonuses, we are talking about $6,000 on average. That is an average, of course. It is not like that; some get higher and some get lower. With the after-tax impact of those bonuses, it is pretty small. Why isn’t the GNWT moving forward through the remainder of this latest Collective Agreement process to eliminate bonuses? If they are necessary, then why don’t we just roll them into their actual contract? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Unionized employees in the GNWT are not entitled to bonuses. It is not part of their Collective Agreement. The individual categories of employment that are eligible for bonuses are excluded employees, senior management employees and executive management employees. For both the executive managers and senior managers, they, unlike union excluded employees, don’t have a grid system as far as their pay is concerned.

For UNW excluded, every year up to eight years, an individual can move up a grid one step at a time. For senior and executive managers, that doesn’t exist.

There is an entire range. For an individual to move within that grid to be consistent with UNW and excluded, we utilize the performance bonus system which will allow them to move within the grid. It is also, as I have indicated before, an opportunity to recognize individuals for exceeding and going beyond their normal job requirements.

Just as another note, I would like to point out, as well, that in the excluded category and senior management category, individuals, employees are not entitled to overtime. They do not earn any overtime similar to what individuals in the excluded category and union category can earn. These individuals – and all of us know many individuals who work in this area – know they are putting in excessive hours well beyond the 37.5. In fact, many of our employees in these categories are putting in 60, 70 and more hours a week. If we were to actually compensate these individuals for overtime as opposed to the performance bonus system that we have in place which recognizes steps but also all the above and beyond services that they are providing, it would far exceed more than double, probably, than what we are paying them bonuses at this point in time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.