This is page numbers 2863 - 2918 of the Hansard for the 17th Assembly, 4th 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 income.

Topics

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department is continuing to work to resolve the few issues that are out there with the people having misplaced in either the application process or the card that was coming from the South to them. We don't see this as a major issue. We process 100 applications per day and we're doing those applications. We have a very high rate of compliance in returning health care cards. Most people have no issues with this, so I don't think it's a scandalous situation. Thank you.

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

Well, let's get to the bottom of this then. The Minister cannot tell us where the information has gone, who has got it, what the problem is and what he is going to do about it. So how does he know it's not a scandal if he doesn't know what's happening? Thank you.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

We judge our statistics on what we're getting from people that are indicating to us that they haven't received their health care card in the appropriate time. Most people aren't saying anything. As I indicated in the House previously, we received about 86 percent of the people who had birthdates up until a certain point that we were processing. That was 11,600 applications to the middle of May. If the information is lost, then we will do what we can to recover information. So the bottom line is, the individuals are covered for medical reasons and that's what we're trying to achieve. Thank you.

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

We have a leak in the ship and its sinking and no one seems to know or care why. You'd think that this is a serious problem.

The last point is, there's an integrity question being called into question and I think the integrity needs to rise all the way to the top to the Minister's office to say, how is he going to take this situation seriously and what is he going to do about it. So, quite frankly, does the Minister have any clue how many applications are at risk and who is at risk? Thank you.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

I've received e-mails from the various MLAs. I would say under 20 e-mails indicating to us that there's an issue with health care cards not coming on time, but we've set allowances for those individuals if they had applied for a health care card and by the time their birthday came around had not received health care, then we would cover them.

I guess, again, we need to make sure that people have coverage, health coverage, and that's what we're doing. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

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

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

Hope and pray cannot be the policy of this program at the Department of Health, that we hope nothing has happened to the information, we pray no one does anything to the information. So the fact is we don't know where the information is going.

Does the Minister know what's happening in this situation and what is he doing about it, because apparently he doesn't seem to be taking it very seriously that all this personal information is being sent out there, no one knows where it's going, no one knows where it's landed, no one knows who has it and they don't certainly know what they're doing with it. What is the Minister going to do with that?

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

A very, very high percentage of the private information that's going to our office in Inuvik is getting to our office in Inuvik, being processed, cards are coming to the people. There are a few glitches in the system, yes. When you're processing that many applications, there's always something that will go wrong and sometimes information is lost. We try to recover that information. Individuals that apply for the card and are saying that the information is lost. We try to recover that information. Individuals who apply for the card and are saying the information was lost, we are dealing with those on a one-off basis. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Ms. Bisaro.

QUESTION 314-17(4):
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE
ANTI-POVERTY STRATEGY

Wendy Bisaro

Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions today for the Minister responsible for the Social Justice Committee of Cabinet. I'd like to ask Minister Abernethy some questions around the Anti-Poverty Strategy and his statement today.

I'd like to, first of all, commend the steering committee who have worked so hard to produce the Anti-Poverty Strategy framework, strategy and/or framework, whatever it's going to be called. I understand, and the Minister referenced it in his statement today, that over the summer, he says Ministers will work together to develop action plans to coordinate responses to this and other strategies and frameworks.

To the Minister, I wonder if he could advise me and the House what the next steps are in regard to these action plans or with regard to the strategy. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Abernethy.

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

Thanks, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the Member for the question. I would like to echo the Member's comments in congratulations to the steering committee for all the incredible hard work they did, but also the working group who was involved from the beginning as well. They've done a wonderful job, but it is just the beginning, Mr. Speaker.

As I did say in my comments earlier today, we will be working on action plans over the summer months. There are a number of frameworks that have been released over this short session and all of them tie together to some degree, so we need to work together as a government on our responses and make sure whether clear linkages are identified, and we are coming together on more of a global approach on how we are going to be responding to these things. We will be working with committee over the summer and we hope to have action plans on all of these available for discussion in the fall. Once the action plan is done on the Anti-Poverty Strategy, I plan to take it forward to a larger group to have some more discussion on territorial response, which I identified in my statement, and we will be doing the symposium at that time.

At the same time as us doing our work, I will be working and encouraging our colleagues out there, our partners out there to be coming up with their response to a particular framework so when we meet for the symposium in the fall, we've all got some ideas on where we need to go as a government and as a territory and as NGOs. So we will be doing that work later, Mr. Speaker.

Wendy Bisaro

Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake

Thanks to the Minister for the response. I can appreciate that. I understand that the government is going to be working on an action plan. I think he referenced that he's going to encourage other stakeholders to develop action plans as well. From my recollection - I'm testing my memory here - I think there's up to 29 different groups who have had a hand in, at some point in time or another, in terms of the Anti-Poverty Strategy with input.

So these various organizations all deal with people who are involved in a situation of poverty, assisting them and so on. These groups, as well, are not well funded. They generally have to do their own funding. So I'd like to know from the Minister if there's going to be an opportunity for this government to provide some funding, it doesn't have to be a lot, but some funding to these groups so that they can develop their own action plans in time for this symposium in the fall. Thank you.

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

Mr. Speaker, we don't have money to provide to individual organizations so that they can provide a response to the framework. But in the budget statement earlier in the year, there was reference for the fact that there was money being set aside to deal with the different frameworks and strategies that are going to be coming out, and there will be money in that to address poverty initiatives and issues once the extra plan is done. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Wendy Bisaro

Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake

Thanks to the Minister. I am frowning over here because the money isn't necessarily needed after the action plan is done, but the money is needed upfront so they can do the action plan, but I will leave it as it is.

One of the concerns that's been heard from Members, but I'm sure also from the stakeholders from the development of the Anti-Poverty Strategy and within the Anti-Poverty Coalition, has been, since 2010 we've been hearing about the government's conflicting policies which create barriers to allowing people who are in poverty to advance and to get out of poverty and to become better and a more productive members of society and for them to have a better sense of self.

So I would like to know whether or not it's on the radar for the Minister and for his colleagues in Cabinet as they develop this government action plan, are they going to be looking at policy and the conflicting policies that exist within this government that keep people in poverty?

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

In coming forward with all these frameworks and strategies that have come forward in the last couple of months, or during this session anyway, it's clear that there are definite links and tie-in, and many of them are working towards the same ultimate goal coming at it from different angles, which is one of the reasons we want to take a little bit of time to make sure that as we move forward we link all those together so that we are not duplicating functions and we are not duplicating initiatives, that we are trying to work together for the best use of money for the best of the people of the Northwest Territories to battle poverty. I would say that yes, we are doing that, and that's our intention, and those discussions are happening at the Cabinet table as well as the Deputy Ministers' Social Envelope Committee.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

Wendy Bisaro

Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. Best use of money. I like that phrase. I hope that it proves out to be true. It's not always true, I think, in government, unfortunately.

To the issue of the symposium, you mentioned in the fall. Is this going to be early in the fall or later in the fall? How long do people have? It's over the summer, so how long do stakeholders have to get their action plans together?

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

I can't remember the exact schedule, but I believe that we are coming together as Members in August, and that's going to be our opportunity to review the action plan. The symposium would be after we as an Assembly review the action plan, so later in the fall.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.

Question 315-17(4): Persons With Disabilities Funding
Oral Questions

June 6th, 2013

Page 2889

Alfred Moses

Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions today for the Minister responsible for Persons with Disabilities. Last year at some time, I made a Member's statement on reports that this government does, and sometimes doesn't take any to them, and sometimes these reports get shelved. Looking at the reports dealing with persons with disabilities, I've come across two here on the website. One is the NWT Action Plan for Persons with Disabilities, even though it deals with so many different areas: disabilities, education, employment, income, disabilities, sports, housing. I could each ask each one of the departments questions on it, but since we have a Minister responsible for Persons with Disabilities, I'd like to ask him for an update on where this NWT Action Plan for Persons with Disabilities is currently sitting and how those action items have been addressed to date, if he has an update on that.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Health, Mr. Beaulieu.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The 2007 NWT Action Plan for Persons with Disabilities had almost 90 recommendations. Of those recommendations, 41 of those recommendations were completed and 38 of those recommendations are ongoing. Nine of those recommendations were considered incomplete for one reason or another.

Alfred Moses

Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake

I know there were a lot of recommendations in the report. We're five years into a government for a document that was tabled in the House in 2008. That's five years of action and work that could have been done to addressing some of these recommendations. We're less than half completed, still a lot that are ongoing, and some that haven't even been addressed.

Can the Minister please go into detail on why some of these haven't been addressed and why we're not even getting half of these recommendations complete? Is it lack of resources? Is it lack of funding into these organizations? Because as we stated earlier this week, we do have a lot of NGOs in Inuvik, in Hay River that do this job on behalf of government but we're not funding, and that can take us back into a whole other discussion on finances.

Can he tell us, clarify why we're not addressing more than at least half of the recommendations being complete today?

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

The items that are incomplete are incomplete for various reasons. Like I indicated, some of funding, definitely. Some have just not been signed off by the groups that are working on that particular action item, and some were considered not applicable. Of the 88 recommendations, nine of those fell into that category.

The 38 recommendations that are ongoing are being actioned, but they are in the nature where they weren't action plans that could have a completion date. Essentially they are action items that would continue on to support the persons with disabilities. Thank you.