The communities certainly want to have these consultations, they want to be advised, they want to be involved. But at the same time, rumours continue to persist. Improving services like providing better services to the communities surrounding Hay River and using their facilities certainly makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is removing the power and control over the Deh Cho Health and Social Services. So what is the plan there and will the Minister address that?

Thank you. In all honesty, there was an idea at some point to increase the role in Hay River in the management of some of the Deh Cho communities. However, that was not accepted. It was something that we discussed for a very short time period and that was something that the communities in the Deh Cho did not accept. The new public administrator that was appointed to replace the board did not accept that, based on his

discussions with the leadership in the Deh Cho. So we are not planning on rolling Deh Cho Health and Social Services under the Hay River authority.

In Hay River we will provide some support to Deh Cho Health and Social Services under the Hay River authority. In Hay River we will provide some support to Deh Cho Health and Social Services because currently Deh Cho Health and Social Services doesn’t have a CEO and neither does Hay River, so we’re moving some people around within our system to support all of the authorities. Specifically, we’re trying to provide some of the support from Hay River as well as Yellowknife to the Deh Cho region.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m pleased to hear that that was just a bird’s eye view and that they’re not going there. Once again, Mr. Minister had travelled with me earlier in the year to the Nahendeh communities, and I would like to continue to invite him to complete the tour. Then I think we may have to make an extended tour again, because people do want to hear more about Deh Cho Health and Social Services, they want the programs and services to improve.

So will the Minister come with me on a tour, and as well as a plan with his department of addressing consultations with the communities as well?

I’m certainly willing to complete the tour and even go back to the communities that the MLA and I travelled to already. Also, I agreed recently to start a bit of dialogue with the deputy minister to have a consultation with chiefs, the public administrator, the MLAs, and anybody else that would be impacted on any decisions that we make pertaining to Deh Cho Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a government we live in a very large territory and there are a lot of regional, geographical and environmental differences. We try to maintain standards so that we have some consistent delivery of programs, but we recognize that not every region is going to be exactly the same. We try to maintain certain standards and we try to deliver the same level of programs and services, but it’s not always achievable.

Thank you, Mr. Premier, for your responses. I certainly want to say to you and Minister Glen Abernethy, coming down to the Sahtu and enjoying the uniqueness of the moose skin boat in the region. That’s what I wanted to get to the uniqueness of the region and maintaining certain standards, and that’s a fair response from the Premier here, that the communities in the Sahtu know we want to look at some of our standards in the smaller communities.

So, from saying that, I want to ask the Premier, are there different classes of infrastructure or classes of community. Colville Lake, Trout Lake, Ulukhaktok and, say, Tsiigehtchic, because they’re small and there’s a certain number that are deemed as a certain class within the government operations, so this is where they get different types of funding for their health centres or their education schooling.

With the myriad of programs and services that we deliver, generally we take into account a number of different features. For example, population is a very important component of any program delivery. For example, Education, they tried to tie their funding to the number of students, parent/student ratios. The Department of Health has a compendium of care, and depending on the population, if we have very small communities we can’t always have a nurse in every community. Some programs are tied to each other. Generally we don’t send nurses where there are no RCMP officers. Those kinds of things.

We also, through the land claims, the negotiations, self-government negotiations, we’ve developed a directory of services and we’re trying to maintain a standard so that people can be mobile and can expect a certain level of care and access to programs.

Fair enough. Thank you, Premier, for the explanation of the different level of communities in the Northwest Territories. That’s probably one of our biggest challenges as legislators when we put together infrastructure or O and M budgets as to how do we maintain a certain level of standard to ensure that the communities

are receiving just about the same levels or standards of care in different communities and larger centres. That’s where probably our biggest concern is.

I want to ask the Premier on that. Is there a point in the communities like Colville Lake where you know that a nurse comes in there once a month but they won’t stay very long because of the time factor, is there is a level of health care standards, education standards or any other type of services that could be stated, well, that’s similar to Inuvik, Hay River or Yellowknife or Fort Smith, saying that they’re receiving the same type of care even though it doesn’t seem that’s the way the people see it in these small communities?

For example, in education we have the same level of curriculum for all of the communities. Again, it’s affected by population and the number of students. With health, we have a similar level of care. The health boards provide for health professionals to travel to communities on a regular basis in how they deal with health care. There are also certain standards in terms of placement of nurses and other health professionals.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Premier is correct that we do have the same health curriculum in the Northwest Territories, and I certainly agree with him. However, the disagreement for me is it’s not taught in the same type of environment in teaching that health curriculum. Colville Lake has one room partitioned off by a paper-thin wall that has four different classes, five different classes in one building here. As to other schools, we don’t have that type of scenario here. That’s where I am getting at, that hopefully with the responsibility of new powers from Ottawa, we could make some of these changes to our smaller communities where they would feel that they are getting the same quality of learning environment in these small communities and that we would become a true partner in the Northwest Territories in its evolution of becoming, hopefully one day, a province.

I think we all aspire to that. We are obviously limited by the level of resources. We try to do the best we can for every community. I should point out that in our capital needs assessment, Colville Lake has been identified in there, that there will be some planning studies that will be done to make sure that the needs of Colville Lake are eventually addressed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Time has expired for oral questions. Item 9, written questions. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the chair of the Social Envelope Committee of Cabinet.

1.

How will the Anti-Poverty Action Plan specifically change the social safety net system so that people with a disabling credit rating are still able to gain timely access to income support from Education, Culture and Employment that also meets their housing needs?

2. The Department of Education, Culture and

Employment currently requires that people with housing debt establish and honour a repayment plan with the Housing Corporation for six months before qualifying for income support. How will the Anti-Poverty Action Plan specifically change the system so that people in immediate need do not have to wait before they are able to access income support from Education, Culture and Employment?

Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Item 10, returns to written questions. Ms. Langlois.

Thank you. Item 11, replies to opening address. Item 12, petitions. Item 13,

reports of committees on the review of bills. Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to report to the Assembly that the Standing Committee on Social Programs has reviewed Bill 15, Gunshot and Stab Wound Mandatory Disclosure Act; Bill 16, An Act to Amend the Justices of the Peace Act; Bill 17, An Act to Amend the Protection Against Family Violence Act; Bill 18, Apology Act; and Bill 21, An Act to Amend the Dental Profession Act, and wishes to report to the Assembly that Bills 15, 16, 17, 18 and 21 are ready for consideration in Committee of the Whole.

The Standing Committee on Social Programs has reviewed Bill 19, Miscellaneous Statute Law Amendment Act, 2013, and wishes to report that Bill 19 as amended and reprinted is also ready for consideration in Committee of the Whole. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Standing Committee on Social Programs wishes to report that we are reviewing Bill 12, An Act to Amend the Education Act, and would like to report that additional time is required to complete the review of Bill 12. Therefore, in accordance with Rule 70(1)(1.3) of the Rules of the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Range

Lake, that the 120-day review period for Bill 12, An Act to Amend the Education Act, be extended to Monday, October 28, 2013. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Carried

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Mr. Hawkins.