Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. A motion is on the floor. To the motion. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This motion clearly indicates that we need to focus on some better initiatives in the education and promotion of healthy, active living. I just want to share a couple of key statistics with you to put a light on this motion.

Life expectancy is six years lower in the NWT than the Canadian average, and I think that’s why this motion has been brought forward. Sixty-three percent of NWT residents 15 and over are overweight or obese compared to only 51 percent of Canadians. It is clear and obvious that we need to do a better job in health promotion and education so that we have much more healthy residents in the years to come.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Active living and physical activity levels is one area where we in the North are challenged. I think there needs to be some additional attention. It’s demonstrated that is so important, even during early childhood to the brain development, but also for health throughout life. The committee has repeatedly asked, as one specific example, for some form of milk subsidy. We, apparently, haven’t done that because parents need to take responsibility for raising their own children. Our employment rates are as low as 30 or 40 percent in some of our communities. This is not a matter of them not wanting to take care of their children. That’s one example. Let’s get that done. I still get requests for that and I know other Members hear about it occasionally as well. I will be supporting the motion.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. To the motion. Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to briefly touch on this motion here. I think committee members and residents don’t have to look any further than some of the key findings in the Health Status Report that was brought forth in August 2011 and some of the key findings that need to be addressed to protect and increase the healthy living of our residents of the Northwest Territories. Obviously, with my background, and seeing the effectiveness of health promotion and education initiatives, and putting more dollars into that and investing into our people, I will be supporting this motion. Like I said, you don’t have to look much further than the Health Status Report of residents of the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. To the motion.

Question has been called.

---Carried

Page 8-31, Health and Social Services, activity summary, community wellness and social services, operations expenditure summary, $89.259 million. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to ask a little bit about the family violence and counselling. I know we’ve had our third, sort of, Phase 3 recommendations on this area, and this year we weren’t able to advance on all of those but I think there was general agreement to them as priorities. Could I just get, maybe, an update on what we’re proposing to do in this fiscal year under consideration here in the way of addressing family violence and the Family Violence Plan, Phase 3.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are continuing the work that was being done under the family violence prevention initiatives in 2012-2013. Social Marketing Strategy, $82,000 community protocols, $120,000; community response teams, $90,000; recovery and support programs for children, $75,000; for a total ongoing contribution of $367,000.

That sounds like a good response. Can the Minister confirm that that addresses all of the recommendations of Phase 3 based on the recent review?

The information I have is that it does address the recommendations and that we are working with the Coalition on Family Violence to address the recommendations in the original plan.

Thanks for those remarks from the Minister. I know Health is working with the Department of Justice, as well, and there are some other programs in that department working on this initiative.

I guess, just on the mental health side, I was happy to see that there is now some attempt to fund the Mental Health Action Plan that resulted from the extensive review that was done. Can this Minister tell me if that will address the needs for assessment and diagnosis and care that would be required out of mental health court, the services that would be required for a mental health court in the Northwest Territories.

I would just have the deputy minister read through some of the

information of the programs and information where we’re spending the money to try and address that issue.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Ms. DeLancey.

Thank you, Ms. DeLancey. Mr. Bromley.

That is positive news. But, of course, I think the committee is looking to fully address all of the gaps. What would it take? What is left to be done? These are the sorts of things that will be useful in discussions to come.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that response we’ll go to Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We don’t have a lot of the detail here on the gaps in order to fill all the requirements that are needed and the work that’s needed by the department in order to meet the needs of the development of a specialized court. What we have and what we will work on – and, of course, that motion was passed today – is that we have some work being done with the development of a youth and detox program models as one of the pieces. We are looking at hiring some mental health specialists in the professional development and also in the quality assurance. Also, looking at some other positions. Chronic disease management that we spoke of a bit will also have a relation to that since mental

health is also considered a chronic disease. During the development of the chronic disease, the department will see, and there will be some correlation between the development of the chronic disease on the mental health portion of the development of the Chronic Disease Strategy and also the finalization of the specialized courts. In addition, we’d have to work with the Department of Justice to do, sort of like, the final gap analysis or assessment in order that we could be prepared to fill the gaps for the specialized court.

I will ask for the chair’s indulgence to have the deputy fill in some other information.

Thank you, Ms. DeLancey. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks to the Minister and deputy minister. I think those comments are very useful and help fill in my understanding.

I guess my last question is, you know, I frequently heard that we need… I’m sorry. I don’t know the terminology, but is it a forensic psychiatrist or somebody who’s able to do the assessments and so on for a mental health court to be workable. Where are we on that? On having those talents ready and available within our government.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. With that, we’ll go to Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We will be addressing that through our collaboration with Dalhousie psychiatry work that we’re doing. I guess it would be the Dalhousie psychiatric telehealth.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Bromley, your time is up. If you want to get back on, just give me a cue. Moving on with questions on page 8-31 I have Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. A few questions here. I’ll start with, hopefully, a relatively easy one. I know that the Minister has committed in the House that funding for the Yellowknife Dene Ko Day Shelter will continue at least for another year. I haven’t managed to find where the budget indicates that funding, so if I could be directed to the spot in the budget that indicates where the funding is for the day shelter and the amount. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that we’ll go to Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That budget is in the contribution to YK Health and Social Services. The overall contribution and the total amount is $175,000.

At the risk of going beyond this page, there is an amount on page 8-32, at the very bottom, for mental health and addictions authorities, $125,000. Could I know what that references?

Okay. Ms. Bisaro, I will allow it, but we’d like to keep on page 8-31 for further questions. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It looks like the Yellowknife homeless day shelter and the Canadian Mental Health Association are the money that may be going to Health and Social Services, but we have agreed to an additional amount of $50,000 because of the withdrawal of BHP. If this is the actual same number, but we don’t understand this to be the same number. Our understanding is that it’s within the overall contribution to YK.

The deputy has just advised me that within the $1.463 million that’s within the department, that a separate contribution agreement aside from the grants and contributions that are issued to the authorities, that this, within the $1.463 million, is where the $175,000 sits.

Thank you all for that explanation. I think I’ll just leave the $125,000; $175,000 sounds a lot better, so I’ll take that. Thank you very much.

I have another question. It’s more of a concern, really. The Minister’s Forum on Addictions and Community Wellness, I think it’s now called, has been going on for some time. When the forum was first designed, it was a forum on mental health and addictions, and the terms of reference were designed under that title, and then the title was changed.

I have a very difficult time discussing addictions without also discussing the issue of mental health. The forum, in dealing with addictions and community wellness, when you just listen to the name or when the forum goes into any community, they are suggesting that mental health is not part of their whole discussion. I know the Minister has sort of explained that mental health is part of it, but I

guess I would just like to know from the Minister, when these recommendations come forward, if they don’t deal with mental health, if they deal simply with addictions and/or what community wellness, whatever that is, is it the Minister’s intention to look at addictions in concert with mental health issues and any recommendations will involve both of those issues. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I think a fairly common thing has been that people sometimes end up with mental health issues as a result of addictions. Sometimes people with mental health end up with addictions. That’s why we see the two items fairly linked. We’re trying to give the forum the ability to, as we appointed them as experts in the community, that they are well known in the community and had good community knowledge, that they felt that removing the mental health from their forum would net better results and better consultation at the community level by using the term addictions and community wellness as opposed to mental health and addictions. They chose that term, so that when they go out, individuals are addressing them in the community level were addressing them with their addiction issues and their wellness issues. They felt that there was a bit of a stigma attached to mental health and they chose to stay away from that as a part of their title.

However, when we do evaluate their report and determine that the work that we’re going to do as a result of their report, we’re not going to separate the two. We are going to, wherever it is necessary to work on the mental health in the community level and where it is necessary to work in addictions or wellness, and also where it is necessary to work in all of those three areas in concert, that’s what we intend to do.

Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate the Minister’s explanation, but I have to disagree with his assessment because I don’t believe that you can separate the two. I think, by the forum and the Minister agreeing that there is a stigma on mental health, we are simply making it worse. I think, until we start talking about mental health and accepting that it is an issue, some people refer to it as a disease, but until we start bringing that to the fore and accepting that is a problem that we have, we won’t adequately deal with it. I think it’s unfortunate that the forum members wanted to remove that particular phrase and replace it with community wellness. I will just leave that as a comment.

My last question has to do with the Nats’ejee K’eh Treatment Centre in Hay River. It has been quite a while now. It has probably been since the 16th that

Standing Committee on Social Programs members have been concerned about the usage at Nats’ejee K’eh. My understanding of the latest statistics, that

Members received, it was anywhere from a 50 percent occupancy up to maybe 60 or 70 percent. I don’t believe it was any better than that. Sometimes it was less than 50 percent occupancy, from what I understand. I believe we have had conversations with the Minister about whether or not something will be done with that facility to bring the occupancy and the usage to a much higher percentage.

I would like to know from the Minister whether or not a review has been done. There was talk of a review probably at least a year or two years ago now. There was going to be an analysis of what the centre was currently doing, what we needed as a territory to deal with, what we needed in a treatment centre and how we were going to change the centre, and use it better and have a greater occupancy rate.

I’d like to know from the Minister whether there has been any review of the centre, whether there is any intention on the part of the department to try and revise the programming at Nats’ejee K’eh to make it better utilized by our people. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I find the questioning rather interesting since the Member indicated it was difficult to separate addictions and mental health and that Nats’ejee K’eh has moved solidly into the area of counselling mental health patients, and that the councillors have a background in mental health.

Knowing that, we looked at the amount of the capacity, I should say, of the individuals, the capacity of the building as they are doing their intakes. The capacity is actually around 46 and dropped to 43 percent, so lower than 50 percent in the last two fiscal years that we’ve looked at.

I met with the board. I went down to Hay River and met with the board. The board asked me if they would be allowed to develop a plan on how they think the program should work.

It’s a rather interesting thing because this is a long story. The need for Nats’ejee K’eh could be an essential part of the overall recovery of people with addictions issues. What they had asked was… We went in there and were basically of the thought that there was not much capacity and low success rate. And that is true. But the more we work with the department, within addictions of all of the communities and so on, the more we’re seeing a possible role for Nats’ejee K’eh, an important role for Nats’ejee K’eh.

One of the things we are doing in addition to allowing the community, that group, the Nats’ejee K’eh to develop a plan to provide to the department, is we’re going to move Nats’ejee K’eh from Deh Cho Health and Social Services under Health and Social Services, the department. Right now we are looking at it as perhaps an opportunity for addicts to

go to Nats’ejee K’eh to get educated. We looked at it from that perspective.

I had discussions with other Members in here. They thought that might be an opportunity to use Nats’ejee K’eh to maximize Nats’ejee K’eh. Right now we’re thinking that we still come away with the understanding that addressing addiction issues is a personal responsibility, so that we can provide as many aids as possible to individuals, and Nats’ejee K’eh being one of those aids that we can provide to an individual to go through an intensive 28-day educational process on the harmful effects of alcohol and drugs.

Meanwhile, the whole spectrum, if we can call it that, of issues to address addictions is largely a personal responsibility. Nats’ejee K’eh is in there. How we are going to use Nats’ejee K’eh, we are not 100 percent sure at this time, but we are going to use Nats’ejee K’eh in a different way. We’re not sure that the right move would be just to shut Nats’ejee K’eh down, because there seems to be some utilization and there are still individuals that are saying that they would like to go to Nats’ejee K’eh for treatment.

Also, the Nats’ejee K’eh could be a complementary type of treatment to all of the other personal responsibilities, on the land treatment, supporting parents in the communities. Some of those ideas are initial ideas that we’re getting back from the Addictions Forum. Once we have that report, we’re going to be able to then, we think, slot Nats’ejee K’eh into the overall spectrum of addressing addictions.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Committee, we’re on page 8-31, and continuing on with questions I have Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Actually, I had my questions focused around chronic disease management and dollars that are being allocated to that. However, the Minister did make a comment there to my colleague’s previous question and one of her concerns was why the Addictions Forum doesn’t contain mental health, and the Minister did mention that he feels that addictions is a personal responsibility. But when you get into the frontline work and you work with individuals that are battling addictions, and you sit down with people that are having a hard time and they can’t get out of the rut of addictions, a lot of it deals with mental health issues. A lot of it is more than just a personal responsibility.

Some of these guys need education; they need an education into personal life choices. You can’t just assume that because they’re a young adult, that they’re an adult or even an elder, that they can make those personal decisions on their own, or those choices. I think that’s where my colleague was trying to go with why we’re not focusing on mental health with addictions, because they do go

hand in hand, and we just have to go down and walk into some of these communities where we’ll see people who are battling with addictions that need that extra support.

I don’t agree with the Minister’s comments that it comes down solely to personal responsibility because this government has a responsibility to offer those services to help those that need that help. If you go and talk to somebody who might be battling addictions, they don’t have the education, they might not have had education.

We’re going through a curriculum right now where we’re going back to residential schools. People’s lives are traumatized at an early age and they can’t make those decisions on their own. So I disagree with what the Minister had said to my colleague, and that is a personal responsibility because there are some people that can’t make that decision or choice on their own. So I just wanted to, for the record, state that, and I will make sure that there will be questions asked in the House and get it on for the record when we’re trying to help our residents of the Northwest Territories, because comments like that really do upset me, Mr. Chair.

Moving forward on to my initial questions and I’ll allow the Minister to respond to that comment. As well, I would like to get more clarification on his thoughts.

In the NWT, 70 percent of all deaths and more than 50 percent of the number of days spent in hospitals were related to chronic conditions. Also, I wanted to throw a couple more stats in there. Approximately 200 new cases of diabetes are diagnosed each year, which are a direct correlation to nutrition, active living and, as stated earlier today, that 63 percent of our NWT residents are overweight and obese. Then when you look at the chronic disease mortality rates, 23 percent are related to cardiovascular deaths. I want to know what the Minister is doing to decrease any one of these statistics that we see, that the public sees that we’ve got to be making plans to cut these down, whether it’s the 70 percent of all deaths, the number of hospitalizations related to chronic disease.

We’ve got to set performance measures. We’ve got 200 new cases of diabetes. How can we set a performance measure that next year we’ll only get 150? That would be success. Or even better, how do we not get any at all? That all leads to prevention and promotion, and that’s where we’re not focusing our dollars. How do we cut down on the 23 percent of cardiovascular deaths that we see each year?

I want to know what the Minister is doing and if he’s looking at providing more dollars into the prevention and promotion so that we can start addressing some of these issues that are clearly stated in the 2011 Health Status Report. I don’t want to get into

asking him questions again if he’s read that report, or not because I’m doing my homework over here and I hope the Minister is doing his. He’s got a big stack, he’s got a big department and, honestly, I was just going to ask a nice question, but his comments to my colleague earlier really got me hot under the collar here. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. For that we’ll go to Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I didn’t indicate that addictions was the responsibility, solely a personal responsibility. I’d indicated that addressing addictions was a personal responsibility and what we’re trying to do is to try to provide some supports, and mentioning the Nats’ejee K’eh would be one of those supports in addition to some of the community programs like on-the-land programs, also, in addition to some of the early findings of the forum of maybe addressing some parental issues, putting in programs to assist parents at the community level and so on.

So it wasn’t to take all the money out of trying to address issues with addictions and writing it off as a sole responsibility. That, I didn’t say. I said that it was a personal responsibility. A lot of people with addiction issues have gone to complete sobriety on their own. That, we know for sure. That’s a fact. Many individuals that have addressed the issue on their own are sober.

There are people that need assistance. That is true. If you’re into the counselling business you have people coming to you. The Community Counselling Program, we’re spending $6 million in the Community Counselling Program. We’re continuing that. We recognize that people come to get assistance, but if you make a personal choice to try to address your addiction issues, then all of the support that can be provided by the department, by the Community Counselling Program or any new programs that are recommended through the addictions forums, will all be aids in place to be able to help people address those issues.

Just on the management of chronic disease, I think what the Members are trying to get from the department is to zero in on having a specific Chronic Disease Management Strategy, but in reality it is throughout our work. If we develop a Chronic Disease Strategy, that’s okay, because it can refer to all kinds of programs that are in the system, but in our system the areas of prevention and promotion, which is an area where the Members don’t agree with the amount of money that we’re saying we’re putting into prevention and promotion. So we encounter that. We see prevention and promotion throughout the entire budget. We see chronic disease management throughout the entire budget. We’re looking at the whole area of anything to do where we’re working with like, one example is TAMI, Talking About

Mental Illness. That program, as an example, is a program that we’re working on. So we’re not doing nothing at all, we’re working there. We have Mental Health First Aid, we’re putting money into mental health and addictions, we’re working on three separate pilots right now, a cancer strategy, healthy eating pilots, and renal is the other one. Then we’re piloting three, I guess, that we were going to use as a base, renal, diabetes – and I don’t remember the locations, but we could have the deputy provide the locations – and mental health.

There are lots of different things happening in the department. I go through a lot of reports that were there before I started. I don’t memorize the reports. I’ve got a huge job trying to move this department forward, trying to address the issues. I think issues that are important to the health of the people in the Northwest Territories. If Mr. Moses asks me questions specific to whether this is in the report or whether you read this report, he talked about several reports yesterday that he mentions again today. One of the reports I hadn’t heard of but the reporter had it. When the guy opened it up and showed me the consultation of it and so on, it was a bit different than the consultation that we’re doing under the forum that we’re doing now. I had indicated to him that we are trying to get more of a community, people going out there doing consultation with the communities and trying to develop something from that. It is costing a bit of money, $300,000, but we think that once we get that report and once we action the report, we will gain that money back in the long run.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Are you concluded? Just one more question I will allow for Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know that both comments were pretty long there, and I do understand the Minister does have a very big department and a lot of responsibility to be working with, he and his staff. When I do refer to reports I refer to it from a ground-level worker, which I’ve done for many, many years, and some recommendations when I left a conference or a workshop feeling good knowing that those recommendations were to be addressed or looked at and they never, ever did. Now that I’m in a position to see if we can try to get those addressed, I feel good about it because I’m saying stuff here now that I’ve been saying for the last 12 years sitting on committees at the ground level working with community members, people who have the challenges with the lack of funding trying to help people that they genuinely care about. So when I go to reports and talk about recommendations, I’m coming at it from a true working level from the ground level. I just want to make that comment to the reports.

Based on the stats, can I ask the Minister why we are piloting three projects when I listed all the stats, and the stats show that we need something concrete. We don’t need pilot projects; we need something concrete. Whether he’s going to allocate specific dollars on an ongoing, year-to-year fiscal budget process to address all these stats that I had mentioned earlier, and not keep them as pilot projects, and not focus on just three communities, but try to find a way to make it a territorial project that addresses all residents of the Northwest Territories, and not just three communities in terms of piloting because it is an issue. I read out the stats earlier. People are dying. People are suffering. We can’t just go out and do a pilot project and say we might be able to help you out, we’ll see how these projects do first in these three communities. As we’ve said, all regions are different. Demographics are different. Costs of living are different throughout different regions. That’s just my question.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. For that we’ll go to Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’re using pilot projects as exactly what they are, pilots. They will end, those projects. The information gathered from those programs, those specific programs would probably continue, but not as pilots. They would continue as the regular course of business that we do in the chronic disease management.

As a result of those projects, we’re going to be able to expand into other programs we’re seeing that we need to address the chronic disease issues. We know that initially when we forge into this work, we do the same thing too. We look at the stats. That’s what we use as a starting point. We know that diabetes is growing at 200 persons per year in the Northwest Territories. We know that diabetes is higher among Aboriginal people than it is among non-Aboriginal people. What we are doing is dealing with, really to address the diabetes issues, we’re saying exercise and eating healthy.

Then we talk about people that, when we talk about cancer, we’re talking about not smoking. We’re trying to get out there and work on prevention programs and smoking cessation programs. Also drinking. Heavy drinking seems to have a very negative impact on a person’s health. So we’re trying to address that issue, too, so we’re talking about that and that’s why we’re doing our addictions work and so on.

We are looking at the stats and trying to put programs into effect and dealing with the authorities, through the authorities, through social services, through the health authorities and so on, health and social services authorities, trying to address these issues, as well, by looking at the stats.

I don’t know if the trend has been where diabetes is growing by 200 persons per year in the Northwest Territories if we’re able to get people starting at the schools, trying to start at the schools, we thought that would be a good point to start healthy living, healthy eating and exercising. We’re able to curb the new diabetes in the Northwest Territories, if we can turn the curve down that would be something we want to achieve. Same with cancer. Cancer rates are very high. The various different types of cancer rates are very high, so we’re trying to address those issues by developing a cancer strategy, by piloting that through two communities in the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. We’re on page 8-31; however, before we continue, I’m going to ask committee members, as well as the department, if we could just tighten up the questions a little bit and maybe tighten up the answers a little bit as we can move on this activity summary. Moving on with questions I have Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a page where, obviously, prevention is big. We’ve talked about it on just about every topic that comes up and I just want to stress, again, that that’s often where I’m coming from. I know the Minister is too.

I view early childhood development programming as the number one opportunity we have in prevention. We have Dr. Corriveau with the Minister’s department working away on a framework. I hope we’re going to come up with a really community-based focus on young families, that sort of approach. We have what we have for resources and as we really go to implementation, we will expand those resources. It has to be done well and intelligently and so on. Wherever the Minister sees an opportunity to support that work, I hope he will do that.

My question, just on the Child and Family Services Act and the previous report, I know the Minister is seriously interested and concerned in that area and has attempted to get community child and family services committees up and running and has found it to be challenging. He’s going to continue to focus on seeing that. All other Ministers we’ve had over the last six or eight years have had that same challenge. What are we doing, what is the focus on implementing the recommendations, both in terms of on-the-ground programs and in terms of the act? Can the Minister – I don’t know if he would have this information – give us an update on what number of children we have in care in the Northwest Territories and outside of the Northwest Territories? Let’s back off the specifics and go to the trends. Are the trends increasing or decreasing in those couple of parameters? I’ll start with that.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We’ll just give the department a minute to retrieve that. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have the numbers of the children that were apprehended. Actually, I guess better yet, the children that are working with the child and family services people or a social worker. Some of them are in a voluntary agreement with the family and some are placed in foster care. We do have a total – I’ll just need to bring this a little bit closer. I would pick a date, Mr. Bromley, because it changes all the time. As of November 30, 2012, we had 582 children receiving services. Of that, 356 of those children were receiving services like counselling, respite services, at the request of parents. Parents do not lose custody of these children of that group. Some are in the custody of foster care but the majority, I guess, 61 percent of the children receiving services are receiving services in their home.

Then we do have the trends as well here, but we’re just pulling up the information. We have so much information here we need to locate the information.

Maybe I could talk a bit about our work with trying to develop child and family services. We had one committee, that committee quit functioning. We’re trying to get that committee up and running again. The community has actually asked that committee be functional again. We had gone to beginning the work in the recommendations of the Child and Family Services Act review, and that recommendation was to try to place child and family services committees in all of the communities where there were children that were receiving services. We were not able to do that. It is my opinion that it would be a matter of sustaining the pressure, I suppose, on the communities to try to get them to come up with a committee from the Department of Health and Social Services or from the health and social services authorities across the territory. An example, I went into the Sahtu, I guess a year after the recommendations were made, and there was no work done on developing the child and family services committees but there was work done in Healthy Families, another recommendation. Which we had direct control over as a department, the money is coming through the department and that was one of the other key members.

As far as the 73 recommendations within that report, what I think we would have to do is show a response to the report. We recognize that in some places we’d have to do the change in the act in order to carry out the recommendations. Some of the recommendations we have acted on and carried out. We can provide that report but it would be difficult to go through each recommendation in this forum. Our information here, the statistics show

that there is a very slight decrease in children receiving services from Social Services.

I realize that there are a whole lot of aspects to this subject and so it’s not possible to discuss it all in this format. Maybe just one last question. The Minister will recall the recommendations that we move from a confrontational, almost legalistic approach, to a more dispute resolution, negotiation counselling approach. Has the Minister found opportunities to work in that direction in the area of child and family services?

The department has provided training to the workers but we’re looking for the specifics of that training, or we can also provide, I suppose we can provide that. We can continue to look for it and then provide the information further on down or provide it in writing, one way or the other. But the department has done some training with the social workers.

Committee, we’re on page 8-31. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to follow up on Mr. Bromley’s questions on the child and family services committee and the response back from the committee’s recommendations on social programs from Minister Miltenberger, they talked about the communities wishing to play a role in the Child and Family Services Act. However, the current structure of the committee doesn’t support that. Is that still the case today, in regard to removing this barrier, so that communities can set up their child and family services committees? I know that was a really good initiative when the Minister and I went in there. What happened?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. For that we’ll go to Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The act is specific in one area that the Member may be referring to. I will have the deputy minister just talk a bit about the specifics of that act and whether or not we have made changes there to remove that specific barrier.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Ms. DeLancey.

Thank you, Ms. DeLancey. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you for the clarification, Deputy Minister. That is my point here. When? Because the Minister and I toured the Sahtu and people were quite excited about having this child and family committee set up, and we’re finding that that’s not the case today. Is there anything in the plans that we’re going to rectify this issue and continue on with some of the great things that the previous government heard about apprehension of children and how the community can be involved in removing those barriers? Can I ask the Minister as to when this is to be expected? Maybe we have to go back in the Sahtu and do a round two on this issue here.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Beaulieu.

We are on track to submitting a legislative proposal to amend the act in this fiscal year as a result of that 2011 review. One of the key amendments in the act is to remove some of the barriers that the communities had encountered in the development of child and family services committees.

That gives me some hope that we’re working towards some of the wishes of the community. I want to ask the Minister, in regard to the Sahtu, because I know some of the communities were quite keen, and I’m not too sure if they’re going to get stung once, and I don’t know if they want to get stung twice. Those are…(inaudible)…in those communities, because that’s what we told them when we went there and now they’re kind of figuring out if we should really trust the government on this issue here. I’m going to ask the Minister to, again, put together this piece of work that would see the Child and Family Services Act serve the people and take down the barriers that are preventing them from being part of something that the 16th Legislative Assembly heard

in their consultation with the communities.

I would commit to giving very clear direction to the authorities that we would like to strike the child and family services committees. The Member and I had travelled together in the Sahtu and they were very, very clear on exactly what it is they wanted. They wanted to make sure that the children of their community continued to reside in their community. Their issue was that they felt that once a committee was put together, that they would be able to develop some foster homes within the community and place the kids within the foster homes, and that they had the knowledge and they knew their children. They were very unhappy that children were down south and in Yellowknife. At the time the Member and I travelled together, there were children from the Sahtu in BC, Alberta and in Yellowknife and the community was extremely unhappy. They had a fairly high incidence of child protection issues as well. The

three communities of Good Hope, Deline and Tulita all had approximately the same number of children receiving services.

The community did ask us to find a way, remove the barriers so that they could have a committee, and it appeared as though those barriers were there. If it means a legislative proposal to make an adjustment to the Child and Family Services Act quickly, then that’s what we want to do. Meanwhile, though, we want to be able to try to work with what we have to be able to try to put those committees in place.

I will make it a mandate of mine to go back to the authorities. If I have to travel back to the authorities again to have this discussion, then that’s what I wish to do. In addition, I will also commit to talking to the Joint Leadership Council, which is the chairs and the public administrators of the authorities, and put this item on the agenda to talk about ways of trying to create these committees.

Mr. Chair, I look forward to the Minister’s provision on the piece of work that we just finished talking about.

I have one final question. When they’re done with the community consultation on addictions that, yes, people went out to the different regions and communities, does the Minister and his department look at, from those consultations and recommendations, something that he would have in place and plan with his department to implement some recommendations or direction from Paul Andrew and his people coming back to us and report this is what the people are saying? Nats’ejee K’eh’s on-the-land programs, youth or whatever, family programs, we don’t know what they’re saying. We kind of understand a little bit of what they’re saying. Maybe that is the new shift of wellness in the North. Is that something that the Minister is going to advocate on our behalf, to say we have Minister Miltenberger, who probably knows the number of days left in this House, do we have the will and the guts to move this into place where the people are saying we’ve have been heard, we see it. I will leave it at that, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chairman, the timeline for us responding to the forum’s report is we’re going to try to do a roll-up of their recommendations in April, and then during the May-June sitting of this Legislative Assembly, we are hoping to be able to present, and that’s again targeted to do it at that time to present the recommendations and how we see those recommendations fitting into our Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan and moving forward to address those issues that are identified by that forum.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Page 8-31, Health and Social Services, activity summary, community wellness and social

services, operations expenditure summary, $89.259 million. Does committee agree?

I will combine 8-32 and 8-33 together. Health and Social Services, activity summary, community wellness and social services. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you. Very quickly, Mr. Chair, the Minister mentioned the $175,000 going to the Yellowknife homeless day shelter. That’s an increase, I believe, in recognition of the pulling out of another partner, but the City of Yellowknife has very graciously put in extra dollars on the condition that the dollars that they’re putting in are met by this government. Does this amount, $175,000, meet the conditions and thereby enable the City of Yellowknife to contribute their full amount? Do we know offhand? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Because there hasn’t been a change in what the contractor is providing in there, and that we’ve been offering with the specific budget for the last fiscal year only, and it’s just from that one source now, ourselves, but in addition to what the city is providing, but then we are taking over for what BHP was providing, so there is no change in the programming. We understand, from our initial discussions with the John Howard Society, that this would be sufficient to carry on for another fiscal year.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Okay, committee. We are on 8-32 and 8-33, combined pages. Health and Social Services, activity summary, community wellness and social services, grants and contributions, grants, total grants, $443,000. Mr. Yakeleya.

Just before we leave the community services, the Minister may be aware of the increase of oil and gas activities and the justice stats. They have been increasing. Clearly, that is going to happen.

I want to ask the Minister what type of response he is going to plan for the Sahtu in terms of the alcohol use, possibly family violence, that show the Minister the increase in the crime stats related to alcohol. It’s going up in all the five communities. I want to know how we are going to support our health centres, our nurses. We do need additional staff, as the other Ministers have identified, certain personnel to be into the Sahtu. I heard from the Minister the other day that at that time they weren’t concerned about any type of additional support. I would ask the Minister to reconsider and re-evaluate the situation in our region. It’s going to get busy. So far we have seen the criminal stats that

say it’s going to get busier. So what do we do? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Beaulieu.

Mr. Chair, the plan was to continue to work with the CEO, then the CEO continues to work with the health centres that may be impacted. Based on the actual impact on the health centres in as far as the number of health concerns or health issues that are brought to the health centres, or a number of social services type of issues that come to the forefront in her dealing with social workers within the communities and within her region, we will have that discussion with her again to ensure that, although we are having discussions with her, I think we were waiting for her to come with a case to say that we need more attention placed here, more attention placed there. What we would do is, we will commit to having contact with the CEO at Sahtu Health and Social Services Authority and run through each of the health centres, each of the social services operations at the community level to see if there is a change in there and change that we are unable to address with the current staff complement.

Fair enough, Mr. Chair. The Minister laid out a reasonable process and path to argue for additional staff. He has to go to the Cabinet and the Financial Management Board. You have to justify.

I believe some information that the Minister has on the criminal activity with justice, I’m not too sure how that closely relates to the health centres or medical service or social services types of work. We need some kind of baseline, I guess. I would again encourage the Minister to keep in contact.

I am going to go back into the Sahtu and I will hear people on the streets talking about it. I may even talk to some of the nurses there to see how they’re doing with the window of opportunity, oil and gas activity and see if there were impacts. It might quiet down after. We don’t know. We might begin with the residue after the companies are gone out and the big cheques are coming into the communities once in a while. I will leave it at that. I will take the Minister’s word on that, that he’s going to continue monitoring them. If there is a good case to put more to the Financial Management Board for additional support, then I am with the Minister 150 percent.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Members, we are on 8-32, 8-33, Health and Social Services, activity summary, community wellness and social services, grants and contributions, grants, total grants, $443,000, contributions, total contributions, $70.955 million, total grants and contributions, $71.398 million. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Page 8-34, Health and Social Services, information item, community wellness and social services, active positions. Any questions?

Page 8-35, Health and Social Services. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just one question here with regard to deficits for authorities. Over the years that I’ve been here, we’ve had a number of authorities which have been in deficit on a regular basis. Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority is one, Stanton is another one and, I believe, the Beau-Del Health and Social Services Authority is also basically underfunded. I know that the department is working, particularly with regard to Stanton, to try and revise how they’re funded to try and determine which activities should be done by Stanton and which should not. My first question is: Which of our health and social service authorities will be in a deficit position in this fiscal year? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that we’ll go to Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The answer is all of them.

Thanks. To the Minister, well that’s very clear. My next question then is: What plans does the department have to make sure that these authorities will not continue to be in deficit year, after year, after year, after year? Thank you.

Thank you. We recognize that part of the issue in some of the authorities is the result of just not having the right budgeting for some. For some it’s the costs of doing business the way that each of the authorities do their business, bringing locums in from across the country. So as we move towards dealing with a governance issue at the health and social services authority and trying to change the way we manage our physician resources across the territory, trying to bring the physician resources to the Northwest Territories, we’re hoping to address these issues.

So I’ll just read some of the stuff that we’re doing. We’re continuing to work with individual health and social services authorities to get a clearer picture of the trends and the pressures. We’ll eliminate the ability to retain surpluses and then require that surpluses be reallocated so that we get a balance. Although the authorities are in deficits, they will not always all be in deficit. At some point some were in deficit, some had surpluses and were able to do reallocation.

We have taken the first steps towards the back office approach of financial management, which will allow the authorities to share resources to move to a common financial system. That was another thing

that we found was a bit of an issue, was that everybody was off creating their own financial systems and we’d be doing it leaner, and probably more efficiently, if we just had the one system. As a first step we’re implementing a shared procurement approach that would have the common accounts receivable right across the entire system. So we think there are some savings there, as well, where we would all do our procurement. All, not us I suppose, but all of the health and social services authorities, including Stanton, would be doing the joint procurement. Then maybe we’ll have better ability to bulk purchase as one example of a way of saving in the future.

So we’re looking at things differently in many areas with a goal of reducing these ongoing deficits that have been going on for many, many years.

Thanks. I appreciate the explanation from the Minister, but it is, unfortunately, things I’ve been hearing about for quite a while and it sounds as though we are starting to move to take some serious action to try and increase efficiencies, and that’s great.

I note that the budget has an increase of about $4.5 million from the 2012-13 revised mains to be budgeted for ‘13-14. So to the Minister, is $4.5 million increase in the total budgets for all the authorities enough to allow them to meet their targets in ‘13-14 or are they going to be in deficit again? Thank you.

Thank you. The authorities will likely be in deficit again at the end of the ‘13-14 fiscal year.

Thanks to the Minister, but I guess I’m getting a little frustrated with the fact that our authorities are, in most cases, consistently underfunded. So when is the Minister and the department going to be able to adequately fund these authorities so they will not be in deficit? I realize it may be an increase to our budget, but we as Members should be hearing from the Minister that you need X number of millions of dollars in order for our authorities to operate on a breakeven situation and we’re not. So when is it that we’re going to get our authorities adequately funded? Thank you.

Thank you. I will ask the deputy minister to provide a more detailed response to that question. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Ms. DeLancey.

Thank you, Ms. DeLancey. We’ll continue on with Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a comment at this point. I appreciate the explanation from the deputy minister. I know it’s a long and involved process but I hope FMB is listening, because what my experience is, is that when authorities go into deficit we as a government turn around and FMB approves the supplementary appropriation that wipes away the deficit. I don’t quite understand, and I know it’s not just the department at this point dealing with a possible solution, but I don’t understand why we cannot adequately fund our authorities. That’s just a comment.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Unfortunately we did cut off Mr. Beaulieu. He’ll have a chance to reply.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to add, that is why our work on the Integrated Service Delivery Model is so essential. Once we decide what services we need to deliver, we would cost out those services, then build in a funding formula. That would be the most accurate way to build the funding formula. As Ms. Bisaro had indicated, in developing the proper budget, well,

this Integrated Service Delivery Model will help us to build a proper budget.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Page 8-35, Health and Social Services, information item, details of funding allocated to health and social services authorities.

Page 8-36, Health and Social Services, information item, lease commitments - infrastructure. Mr. Hawkins.

Oh, sorry. Page 8-36, you said?

Yes. I’ll repeat that again. Page 8-36, Health and Social Services, information item, lease commitments - infrastructure.

Page 8-37 to 8-41, Health and Social Services, information item, work performed on behalf of others. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m wondering if the Minister could provide some details on the NWT National Diabetes and Chronic Disease Surveillance System.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We would like to have a few minutes to see if we have the information here with us.

We’ll give you a couple of minutes there, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize, but we would like to hear the question on that item again.

Absolutely. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted some detail on the NWT National Diabetes and Chronic Disease Surveillance System. We have $177,000 committed to it, and I’m just wondering if I can get some details as to what it is and how it works.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. We’ll go to Ms. DeLancey.

I think that’s enough of a cursory intro to know exactly what that is. Just one other last question. Under drug treatment funding program, Nats’ejee K’eh Centre Youth Treatment Program, are there any deliverables under this particular section? We have a section worth commitment, requiring $345,000. I’m just wondering if there’s any reporting or deliverables that we see sent to the Legislature.