Thank you, Mr. Chair. With respect to telehealth and a lot of the other eHealth or e-social services systems that we’re working on, there are a number of things in place and we continue to move forward with a number of initiatives. In this budget you’ll see some money for CFSIS, which is the upgrade of the Child and Family Services Information System which, no doubt the Member knows and we all know, has to be done. It is a critical piece of technical infrastructure that we need to get up and running in a useable way. Not just there but it has to be useable and functional for our staff. It is a couple-year project as we move forward, but it’s essential.
We do have telehealth in all of our community health centres and we are using them. We do know that we are using them for things like TeleSpeech and a number of things, doctor/patient interactions. I have travelled throughout the Northwest Territories, as I said, since I have become the Minister of Health and Social Services, and I have visited a large number of health centres. Some of them are using it more effectively than others are, and some are using it in more creative ways. We need to continue to push all of our health authorities to find and utilize it as much as possible because it continues to be a great tool. But it’s not the only thing that we’re using. We have invested, and we continue to invest, in things like DI/PACs, and we have been able to acquire a whole lot of money from organizations like Infoway.
We are continuing to move forward with EMR. It’s in Yellowknife Health and Social Services, Hay River Health and Social Services, Fort Smith Health and Social Services. We’re in the process of trying to
get it into Stanton right now. There have been a few little hiccups as we are rolling that out but we will work through those. We will make it happen. We are going to get it into all the health centres in the next, I believe, two to three fiscal years is our plan. Tlicho would be the last one on our list to get done, but we continue to move forward. EMR is a huge tool for all of us in the health care system.
We have a number of other tools that we’re using throughout the Northwest Territories, so we continue to move forward. These are actually going to be enhanced once we get the fibre optic line down the valley. We’ll have higher speeds, higher times. It’s going to improve our telehealth response in the valley and in the communities that are receiving services along that line. So there’s a lot of good news on that front. But based on my journeys, clearly we have to work a little harder with the authorities to get them to use telehealth to help us reduce things like medical travel. That is something that the department is keenly aware of. This is one of those things that we believe will be easier once we move to a single authority so that we can have the interaction without some of the barriers that we’ve created for our own design.
I hear the Member about Avens. There is no question that I am supportive of this project. I have been Minister of Health and Social Services for one year. I have been an MLA for seven years. In the last Assembly, Avens was very keen to get the Dementia Facility built, and we all worked together to find a way to do that. I did not hear anything about this new facility. The Member says it has been years and years, but I just don’t see that exactly as the Member does. I didn’t have anybody approach me in any capacity as Public Works and Services or Health and Social Services until I actually became the Minister of Health and Social Services a year ago. It’s the first time somebody approached me and said, we need to make this facility. I understand that they did go to Members for that, but since I’ve been the Minister I’ve been working hard with Avens to find a way to make this happen, and we’re going to find a way to make this happen.
The Member says, what about having them be able to charge higher rates? This is one of the options that they approached us with and said, how about if we can charge higher rates for individuals in our facility? The problem is, if we provide them a loan guarantee or if we fund this project, our policies and procedures have to be utilized, which limits the amount that an individual can pay. We actually have a set criterion what people will pay in our facilities. We are actually exploring some policy options around that to see if we can amend that based on requests from Avens. So we are exploring all of these things that the Member is talking about. We are wanting badly to find a way to work with Avens to make this facility a reality, but there are
some limitations. We need them to help us come with a final, solid ask of what path they want to take, and we’re open to whatever they want. At this point we will find a way. Some ways will take longer than others, but we are open to any options that they want to explore.
We have invested in them. We have given $25,000 so that they can have some consultants work on this project with us and with them. So, we’re involved. We are working with them closely, and we are going to continue to work with them, and we will find a way because we recognize the importance of this facility and we are committed to helping them do it.
With respect to Stanton, as a Regular Member in the 16th Assembly I sat with my colleagues, many of
them still sitting on that side of the House, and we strongly recommended that the GNWT develop a P3 policy, so they did. The GNWT developed a P3 policy in the last government. The GNWT’s P3 policy requires that all projects over $50 million be reviewed for delivery as a public/private partnership. As a result, the detailed feasibility analysis and a business case was completed which clearly showed that delivering Stanton under P3 would be the most cost-effective project delivery method following our P3 policy that is in place. Delivering Stanton as a P3 is anticipated to deliver significant value for money to the Northwest Territories. Canada is a mature P3 market with a robust P3 model that has been proven to safeguard the public interest in project delivery.
I am going to go to Mr. Miltenberger, who is the lead for this project, but before I do that, I would like to just be very clear – and hopefully everybody is going to get this – we are not privatizing health care in the Northwest Territories and there is no expectation or intention on our behalf to privatize health care in the Northwest Territories. We will not do it. It’s not our plan and it’s not something we are interested in doing. We will not privatize the delivery of health services in the Northwest Territories.
When it comes to P3 projects, I would like to go to Minister Miltenberger, the Minister of Finance, who is leading this Stanton Renewal Project.