Thank you. In this needs assessment, what are you looking at? Are you looking at the amount of applications or requests to go in long-term care facilities, the amount of hospital visits from our senior citizens? What type of criteria are you looking at in this needs assessment, and if it’s broken down to regions or communities or even regional centres such as Inuvik? I know there’s a waiting list for a long-term care facility in Inuvik or Simpson, or I know they’re just getting one in Norman Wells.

From the needs assessment of 2009, I’m sure it might have addressed some of those concerns into which regions. We would need more long-term care facilities or extra beds. Were those results particular to those kinds of needs assessment and did the department act on those needs assessments of 2009 into which regions or communities needed the most support? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, our response was the replacement and additional beds to the Jimmy Erasmus Long-Term Care Facility in Behchoko and the Norman Wells 18-bed long-term care facility also. Thank you.

The Member for Mackenzie Delta isn’t here, but I’ll speak on his behalf with the elders facilities in Aklavik being shut down. It has increased the amount of people wanting to get into a long-term care facility in the hospital, which does put a backlog and a waiting list for others that do need to get in there. So does the Minister have any plans in how to address this regional issue? Thank you.

I’d like to defer the question to the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Joe Greenland Centre in Aklavik, one part of it was used by independent long-term residents in Aklavik. The other part Health and Social Services had had before. Our plan is to convert that into more units for independent seniors. We plan on starting the work this summer, getting the initial plan there and get the work started, then hopefully have tenants in there before Christmas. That’s the plan for the Joe Greenland Centre right now.

I need to stress that the Joe Greenland Centre is not closing down. The Housing Corporation owns the building and we’re doing some renovations to allow more seniors to live in there.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Mr. Moses.

I think I’ll say on this topic here and in regard to the seniors’ independence, that’s great to see, but we’re also talking about health care and care of our seniors and the seniors that can’t live

the independent lifestyles and they’re living at home with their families and putting stress on their families. We’ve had requests to find spaces for them. When we know there’s backlog and there’s no way we can do it, it just adds more to the problem. I was just wondering if the Minister had any solutions to the situation in the Beaufort-Delta region as it pertains to elders who need ongoing care at this time.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Ms. DeLancey.

I was going to switch over to another area here. Awhile back we had sort of a press release of this Betty House here in Yellowknife, and under the activity description for community health programs, programs related to emergency shelters and counselling, what is the department doing to provide counselling, therapy and services to Betty House, in particular?

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I believe that aside from the capped contribution from the Government of the Northwest Territories there are no plans at this time to have any O and M spending on Betty House.

Seeing that it’s a new facility and we do have a lot of high incident rates of clientele that do go there, I think it would be in the best interest of this department to work at bringing those services into the House. Some type of counselling or some type of partnership where they can assist these clientele with the help and support that they need. Is that something he might be bringing into the next business plan for the next fiscal year?

The person services that may be needed for individuals living in Betty House can be provided by the YK Health and Social Services Authority, like any other member of the city of Yellowknife. That part we can still cover. I was more or less responding to the actual operations and counselling services that may have to be available within the envelope of Betty House, but I also understand that this is what the Member

is referring to, then we will take that back to the Department of Finance to have that discussion to see if there can be money found in that area. At this time we had not planned on participating in that way.

That’s great news and that’s great to see that initiative and working together in that area. There was another mention here of treatment services related to children, youth and families. My colleague talked about child and family services earlier. In another aspect, the Community of Hay River Interagency Committee just had a meeting not too long, and they talked about treatment facilities or treatment programs for youth. We didn’t get a chance to bring them up in some of the business plans, but it is something that the community of Hay River is very strong about.

They’ve really gone through a lot in the last couple of years. They’ve taken great strides in creating awareness around the alcohol and drug problems in the community, and it’s something that really needs to be supported.

I’m just wondering if the department has taken any consideration or action into some of the recommendations that came out of that. If there are any youth treatment programs, whether it’s counselling, therapy, I’m just wondering what kinds of programs the department offers to youth. Not just in one of our communities but throughout the Northwest Territories. To our small communities, to our regional communities, to the capital here in Yellowknife.

Youth are counselled also with community counselling programs. We have about $6 million in the Community Counselling Program across the territory, and they counsel adults and youth alike.

As far as actual youth facility infrastructure or building for youth treatment facilities, the department hasn’t looked at that closely. We do know that the treatment of youth in a facility environment or in a treatment centre, the numbers for the territory are very low. I think we’ve treated 12 youth in three fiscal years, the past three fiscal years, because the majority of situations with youth are that they must volunteer to go to treatment in order to make this viable. Most youth that do go to treatment are forced into treatment. Unlike adults, you don’t usually come out and say that they have an issue, an addiction issue or other types of issues. Nats’ejee K’eh is the treatment centre for adults. We actually thought about looking at that facility and saying maybe, if there can be one program per year or something, working with Health Canada on developing a youth treatment program within that building. Right now the past fiscal year Nats’ejee K’eh ran nine different programs for adults. I think five treatment programs for female and five for male. We’re looking at if that is the right

mix and if there would be a requirement for an actual one of those programs to be a youth treatment program within that facility and Nats’ejee K’eh will work with Health Canada to develop an actual treatment program for youth.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Time is up. We’ll move on to Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to ask, to start off with, if we know currently how many children are in care outside of the Northwest Territories and how many are in care inside the Northwest Territories.