Agreed.
Debates of June 6th, 2012
This is page numbers 923 - 956 of the Hansard for the 17th Assembly, 3rd 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
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Some Hon. Members
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
The Chair Daryl Dolynny
Thank you. Page 8-15, Health and Social Services, information item, directorate, active positions. Are there any questions? There are none. Page 8-17, Health and Social Services. Mr. Bromley.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I see here the page deals with maternal and child health, so I am assuming that early childhood development is one of the responsibilities within this program. What role is the department playing? What new programs are being put in place for early childhood development recognizing the priority that this government is putting on that this year? What role is the department playing in working with sister departments on the broader early childhood development programming?
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Debbie Delancey
Mr. Chair, there is no new funding for early childhood development initiatives in this budget. I believe the Minister has spoken to our hope that we will be able to identify funding in the future to expand the Healthy Families program and at least into the Sahtu region. We are working very closely with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment on updating the Early Childhood Development Framework with an immediate focus on the family resource centres. We also have been lucky enough to recruit back our chief public health officer, Dr. Corriveau. While he was in Alberta, he just produced a major report on early childhood development. We hope to benefit from his research and expertise in that area to help inform our work with ECE. It is something that we recognize. Again, it is extremely important, and out of the work that we are doing right now with ECE, we hope to expand the existing program through the next business planning cycle.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
Mr. Chair, thanks to the deputy minister for that information. What positions do we have that are dedicated to early childhood development in this department? Are they currently filled? Thank you.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe
Mr. Chair, in the department we have one position, but most of the money to do early childhood development work is with the authorities, with the health and social services authorities across the North. I don’t have the detail of how many positions that constitutes.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
Mr. Chair, just before my next question, does the Minister agree that early childhood development is a major opportunity and responsibility that we have, given our new considerable and new enlightening knowledge in terms of our prevention priorities in terms of health and many other broad government goals?
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
The Chair Daryl Dolynny
Mr. Bromley, if I can get you to rephrase that. It was more of an opinion question. If you can be more specific.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
Mr. Chair, is early childhood development considered a priority by your department?
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
As a priority and recognizing the considerable amount of new information that’s available now – and the deputy minister referred to a really excellent report by Dr. Corriveau that does incorporate a lot of that information in a popular format -- is the department playing a role getting that information to authorities and helping them identify the opportunities in early childhood?
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe
As we take a look at the delivery model again, many of the functions that are in the authority like the public health, Healthy Families and public health nurse and so on are targeted towards early childhood development and are part of their functions. A part of many of the positions in the authority are addressing the early childhood development. We will make sure that any information that we get as a result of having Dr. Corriveau back in our employment will be given to the health and social services authorities.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
I appreciate the comments from the Minister. That sounds great. Just backing off to a little larger scale, what’s the format and the role of the department in trying to help our professionals and our service people keep up to date with new information such as the amazing stuff that’s coming out of early childhood research now? How does that work?
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Debbie Delancey
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The department plays what’s technically usually called a ministry role, and so we do try to, to the extent that we have the capacity, we try to have subject matter experts on staff, and their job is, indeed, to do just what the Member’s talking about. So our early childhood development specialist would work with other headquarters departments to try to make sure that we are not siloed and that we’re coordinating on delivery of these programs, would try to keep on top of research, would organize training sessions sometimes at the department’s initiative and sometimes at the request of health and social services authorities. We do have professional
development funding that’s available for our professional allied health professionals and nursing and physician staff throughout the system. They will sometimes pull that funding together and the department will try to bring in resources and expertise. The department tries to play a specialist role to the extent that we have the ability to do so, but a lot of the expertise does reside out in the authorities, and we do have a lot of great staff out in the system in the authorities that will play that role for one another as well. They don’t always wait for the department to do it.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
Great information there. In terms of the less professional side of the equation, which is, of course, the seat of much of our early childhood development opportunities dealing with the public and community groups and young parents and other ways, parenting skills and whatnot that may be delivered by non-government organizations, is there a mechanism for the department to interact with them or is that left to the regional authorities? Thank you.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Debbie Delancey
For the most part, the lead on interacting with residents and stakeholder groups at the community level is done by the authorities. The department, obviously, has a role interacting with some of the territorial non-government organizations. We do have a headquarters position that’s actually located out of Hay River that is working on developing community wellness plans and is engaging with a lot of those interagency and NGO groups at the community level, but most of that interaction would happen through the authorities.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
Thank you, Mr. Chair. It’s all good information. I’m learning the process here more and more. So could I just get a commitment from the Minister – I’m sure he’s doing this already, but given this is a priority – that he will continue to explore all fronts on getting the expanded and expedited programs in early childhood as we learn more and recognize the need and opportunity? Thank you.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
The Chair Daryl Dolynny
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Moving on, we have Mr. Moses. Sorry, Mr. Moses, Mr. Bromley has just a few seconds left, Mr. Bromley.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Bob Bromley Weledeh
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thought I’d indicated I had one more. I don’t hear a response to whether or not our one ECD position is staffed currently in the department.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters