Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the Minister is referring to the continuing care review which Members have seen. A lot of work with the Bureau of Statistics went into trying to do some projections on the growing seniors population. We know the number of people age 70 and over is going to triple from in the period of time between 2011 and 2031. We know that it’s happening at a much faster rate in Yellowknife.
Based on the regional population projections, our consultants did some modeling in terms of how many long-term beds we would need. According to the modeling projections, we don’t anticipate a shortage of long-term care beds in the NWT until 2021, but we know that there are people today that are on waiting lists. Even if we don’t have an overall shortage of beds, we know that in some cases people on the waiting list will decline a bed in another region because they want to stay closer to families. We know that some people on the waiting list need specialized services whether it’s extended care or the Dementia Centre. There really is an urgency and we feel that urgency, but the reality is that over the next few years, with the beds that we are putting in with Behchoko, with Norman Wells, we do believe that in the short term there are enough beds in the system. The reality is they are not always going to be in the communities where people want them, and that’s part of our next step, building on the continuing care review. Developing the next tranche of capital submissions for long-term care is to address that need. Thank you.