Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was referring to medical detox possibility at the hospitals. My understanding is that earlier on, during questioning on medical detoxification at the hospital, we agreed we could provide beds in the hospital; but to keep a bed vacant in hospitals all year long on standby for that would not be appropriate. So any bed in acute care can be used for an individual to detoxify.

I don’t think the health centres in the small communities would be set up for that, but they could possibly do it. With the right nursing staff in place, they could possibly do something like that if an individual was in some sort of distress over

detoxification. But my answer was more specifically to hospitals. Thank you.

I really enjoy dialogue with the Minister on services that we provide here in the Northwest Territories. Any bed in acute care that would be allocated for someone through detox, and if the Minister understands when a person goes through detox, all the implications that happen with that psychosis where they can be deathly.

Is this Minister willing to put someone going through extreme detox in the same bed as a public person who might only be in there for the flu? Can I ask the Minister, is he willing to support a bed in acute care for somebody going through extreme detox? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I’m not a health professional. That responsibility for placing an individual in one of the acute care beds for going through medical detoxification would be made by a physician. Thank you.

I just want to state that I know we come down hard on the Minister all the time, and it’s not only his responsibility. We deal with homelessness, mental health, and you deal with justice, employment, education, homelessness. As a matter of fact, he’s responsible for the facilities here in the NWT.

The Minister also mentioned treatments, in answering a Member on this side. He said that treatment happens fairly quickly.

Can he give me a definite response on what “fairly quickly” means? I’ve been dealing with some of my constituents and I’d say it’s been over a month already, so I’d like to ask the Minister what he means by fairly quickly, if he could give me a date, please.

I’ll talk a little bit about the original process. The original process was quite a long delay, where an individual had to be clean and sober and follow up with some community counselling, and then wait for the next intake into a treatment centre to go. Now, with the contracts that we have in the South that have continuous intake, I don’t think it’s every day but I think the intake is on a weekly basis, so every week new people wanting treatment come into the facility.

Our idea is once an individual comes into the system and requests treatment, that we try to bring them into the next intake at the closest intake possible that we can get them down there is what we are trying to achieve.

I was advised that people were going out at the latest within two weeks, so I didn’t know there were individuals waiting for a month since we had discontinued Nats’ejee K’eh. Thank you.

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

I think we could solve this issue a little easier going forward here, and it all stems down to the written questions I had raised this summer during our last session, and that’s dealing with the Mental Health Act.

Can the Minister look at trying to speed that review up and looking at the Mental Health Act and how we can get that addressed so we don’t always have to be asking these same questions? Mental health actually takes care of the different legislative property. Can we see that speeded up during this Assembly? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the target for finalization of the legislative proposal for the Mental Health Act review is for the winter of 2014. I’m hoping that’s early winter and not late winter 2014. If that’s not the case, then I will report back to the Member. My understanding is it’s early winter 2014. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would also like to follow up from my earlier Member’s statement with questions to the lead Minister for the Anti-Poverty Strategy, Mr. Abernethy.

As I mentioned in my statement today, my constituents are telling me that our social safety net contains poverty traps. Some of the rules make it very difficult for people to access the help they need.

I’d like to start by asking the Minister, first of all, what is the current status of the Anti-Poverty Strategy Action Plan. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister responsible for poverty, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The framework was released earlier this calendar year, and the government and Cabinet have been working on an action plan to respond to that framework. We have shared that draft with committee and we are working on the committee’s responses to it to improve that plan as we move forward.

In the meantime, we’ve funded the No Place for Poverty Coalition to have a roundtable of their own to start working on individual responses to the report so we can all come together in November. November 28th and 29th are the dates that have

been confirmed for our territorial group to come together and work on a territorial response to poverty. So it’s important that we all work together, that we’re working with the NGOs, and also working across departments, because it’s going to take

everybody to deal with poverty in the North. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate the Minister is seeking support or input from the wider community on this and that he’s committed towards moving things forward towards implementation of the action plan.

The poverty traps I mentioned have been discovered by people trying to access the system. Obviously, these constituents are not policy analysts, but their experience highlights the need to research such policy issues and propose solutions. So can the Minister say how the action plan will tackle these needs?

Thank you. The Ministers responsible for the social envelop have continued to have conversations on how we can bring the departments together to work more effectively together. In the development of our action plan, which we’ve shared with committee, the draft action plan, we worked really hard to make sure that we’re using common language and where there was certain crossover between initiatives like the Economic Opportunities Strategy and Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan that the Minister is coming forward with, as well the Early Childhood Development Framework and Action Plan, as well as the good work that the Housing Corp has been doing. We’ve tried to ensure that all of that was incorporated within our territorial response, our GNWT response. But it’s more important than just having a response; it’s actually working together. The Social Envelope Committee of Ministers has been having conversations around this and has been directing our departments to find ways to actually break down some of the silos and work together. We continue to do that and we will continue to do that.

We also are always looking for examples, and the Member has provided me with a number of examples of where we’ve had some obvious breakdowns between different departments and some of the programs and we’re looking to find remedies to that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Minister has very correctly depicted this as a cross-departmental dilemma. Clearly focused attention is needed on these conflicting cross-departmental policies that entrap people in poverty, as the Minister has said.

Will the Anti-Poverty Action Plan include funding or dedicated personnel, almost an ombudsman sort of a person, to research and suggest solutions to poverty traps like these and other policy dilemmas as they come up? Thank you.

An anti-poverty coordinator has been hired with an effective date of October 21, 2013. This individual coordinates territorial action plans, provides advice and

recommendations to the GNWT on any ongoing initiatives that support the priorities in the frameworks, and identify areas for collaboration actions to advance the priorities of the framework among all of our partners, including GNWT departments and NGOs. This position will also review annual results of the GNWT partner actions and complete results reports and report progress on broad social indicators. So the answer is yes.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I don’t see a coordinator as being what I’m talking about here. Policy analysts are a very specific breed of cat and they have a specific focus and they get into the intricate examples of conflicting policies and weigh out the solutions. So I’m wondering: Has the work to date profiled issues such as these, other than a few examples provided by my colleagues and myself? What mechanism is being contemplated to ensure these policy conundrums are captured and brought forward for resolution so they don’t recur? I don’t think, again, a coordinator is what we’re talking about. Mahsi.

It’s a title. The coordinator is a title. This individual will be reviewing policies across departments that are coming under this Anti-Poverty Action Plan and making sure that they’re moving forward. The larger responsibility, obviously, belongs to the individual Ministers and the Social Envelope Committee of Ministers to make sure that departments are working together, and each department has their own policy unit who can do analysis. So this coordinator will play an important role in analyzing and making recommendations on where these barriers tend to, or may, exist. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this point the plan for the Deh Cho Health and Social Services Authority is to remain with the public administrator – myself and the public administrator spoke – for at least two years in order to do some of the work that we think is necessary, some of the issues that we’re dealing with in the Deh Cho Health and Social Services. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Certainly, there were some issues there, like elders continuing to be sent home with aspirins instead of getting proper checkups. There was another instance of an incomplete and misdiagnosed elder who broke her wrist and wasn’t diagnosed for months. So I know that the public administrator was just put in place, but what is the plan to improve the programs and services for Deh Cho health and social services at this point? Thank you.