Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The motion is in order. To the motion.

Question has been called. Motion is carried.

---Carried

Item 18, first reading of bills. Item 19, second reading of bills.

Colleagues, before I place you in Committee of the Whole, by the authority given to me as Speaker, pursuant to Rule 11(4) of the Rules of the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories, I hereby appoint the Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bob Bromley, to act as deputy chair of Committee of the Whole for the remainder of this Fifth Session.

Item 20, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters: Bill 25, An Act to Amend the Education Act; Bill 27, Miscellaneous Statute Law Amendment Act, 2014; Bill 29, Human Tissue Donation Act; Bill 30, An Act to Amend the Public Service Act; Bill 32, An Act to Amend the Pharmacy Act; Committee Report 7-17(5), Report on the Development of the Economic Opportunities and Mineral Development Strategies; and, Tabled Document 115-17(5), Northwest Territories Capital Estimates 2015-2016, with Mr. Dolynny in the chair.

I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of committee? Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We would like to continue consideration of Tabled Document 115-17(5), Northwest Territories Capital Estimates 2015-2016, continuing on with Health and Social Services and then, time permitting, Justice and Industry, Tourism and Investment.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. We’ll commence after a short break.

---SHORT RECESS

I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. I’ll go to the Minister of Health. Do you have any witnesses to bring into the Chamber?

Yes, Mr. Chair.

Does committee agree?

Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the guests into the Chamber.

Mr. Minister, can you introduce your guests, please?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On my left, Debbie DeLancey, deputy minister of Health and Social Services; and on my right, Perry Heath, director of infrastructure. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. On my list I have Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, welcome to the Minister and to the department today. At the risk of not repeating much of what has already been said by Members, I would like to narrow my concerns to what I consider the areas of concern with the current Health infrastructure budget before us, and I’d like to shed some light on some of the practices that I believe are preventing efficient solutions from emerging or at least provide a transparent process for them to be achieved.

At first glance, given the amount of this budget and comparing this to the operational side of Health, I can attest that we have a very disproportionate budget before us when you look at that comparison to what I consider our overall fiscal framework. When we spend more for one kilometre of new road than we do for lifesaving programs, nurses or elders, I believe we have a problem of values, which puts into question our desire for a prosperous north.

I’d like to narrow my three areas of comments under three broader categories, the first of which is I’d like to kind of call it aging in place or the Aging in Place Strategy. As the government, this is a means to save money. I’m in full support of this initiative. I think it has merit, and we all know that it will reduce the amount of facilities or beds required. But when you look at this process of wanting people to age in their own homes and provide a support network, there’s nothing in this budget as to how and by what means this will happen. We have seniors today who would benefit from some form what I like to call transitional living or at least transitional living options, yet look at what we have for overall inventory to meet this demand and it’s not there. I can tell you, it’s getting worse with every passing day. We are getting older. This department really does not have any firm framework or plan to deal with what I consider a crisis that’s looming.

Clearly, we could be or should be establishing partnerships with the private sector and providing incentives for strategic investments and development. One only has to look south of the border to see that other governments have been doing so for decades and with much success. Again, I challenge this department and this Minister to find incentives, whatever they are, so that developers will see the benefit in partnering with the GNWT in mitigating our backlog of seniors waiting

for viable options and for this type of transitional living.

Next I’d like to talk a little bit on the subject of Avens. I believe the Minister is dedicated in wanting to find a solution for the current Avens project to proceed on course. However, like many, including myself, what we’ve heard in the last day or so, I’m still perplexed why this department still is putting up what I consider roadblocks. I believe, in its basic form, this organization is merely looking for a memorandum of support so they can secure their funding, and I believe this is not a complex ask. It does not require three or four attempts to come forward with different proposals. I believe that the proposals have been genuine and I believe that the offer has been genuine, but the receipt and the opportunity for government to live up to its obligation has not been. I’m seeing nothing in this budget that will send the right message forward for the project designers of Avens, and I fear that we are continuously providing roadblocks that will delay which I consider probably a very critical and important piece of infrastructure not only for Yellowknife but for all Northerners and their families.

Finally, I would like to touch on Stanton and the current P3 initiatives. I believe the Minister recalls not that many days ago he and I were at the Stanton Hospital AGM, and he even reminded residents that were in attendance that this would come back on the floor of the House, so I’m here now not to disappoint the Minister. I know the Minister is not the lead on this project, but clearly the Minister must agree what he has heard thus far should concern him. If not, I’d like to remind him today in the House, and with all my colleagues present, at this AGM, every stakeholder that was there reminded this Minister there was absolutely no dialogue, no public meeting, there was no public substantiation or rationale for proceeding with the Stanton renovation project under the guise of what we now know as a P3 model. Nothing. So we must ask, why? Why did the government proceed in this way? Why the secrecy from public not to have a voice in what the Minister reminded us yesterday was being one of the largest and most expensive projects ever to hit our ledger in the GNWT?

I would like to remind the Minister we have a P3 policy and not P3 legislation in place, and I can assure the Minister that our current P3 policy has not withstood the rigors of success as being touted by our Finance Minister. For the sake of time, I will not table numerous examples of where our P3 has failed this government in the last 10 years or more.

Again back to the issue. When will this Minister take it upon himself to reach out to residents, to patients, to the frontline workers of our health facilities and to the general public to have a frank and open

discussion on the Stanton P3 process and to those affected?

I know the Minister has been very frank on the other aspect of the privatization question. This was a huge question of concern for many residents. But as we heard yesterday in the House, and I quote from the Minister, “We will not privatize the delivery of health services in the Northwest Territories. We will not do it.” Those are his very words. Because, clearly, I have to represent eight very concerned Range Lake residents who are on pins and needles not knowing if their facility services jobs are going to be there tomorrow, I have to bring this question forward. I am there for them and I’m there for all the workers of the hospital system and their families.

Again, those are my general opening comments on this infrastructure budget for health.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the Member’s comments. With respect to the comment about a disproportionate budget, I do have to just remind Members, yet again, that Stanton is part of this budget, the Stanton renovation and renewal is part of this budget. It’s a $350 million budget and it’s the largest individual capital project that the Government of the Northwest Territories has ever undertaken. Granted, there is $40 million in this year, but it is part of a larger project, so we will be investing significant money in social infrastructure in the Northwest Territories.

The Member started off by talking about aging in place. Just to be clear, the Aging in Place Strategy is not about saving money but providing a full range of services to the people throughout the Northwest Territories who have told us time and time again they would like to stay in their homes and in their communities for as long as possible. This is about providing supports and programs to individuals to help them stay in their homes where they have clearly told us they would like to stay, and stay in their communities if they are unable to stay in their homes. To that end, we could talk about the partnerships we already have with organizations like the NWT Housing Corporation who has been very proactive and has moved forward on the construction of five independent living homes in communities throughout the Northwest Territories. Those have been mentioned several times, and those are in the communities of Whati, Fort McPherson, and I am actually blanking on the other three, but there are five communities.

When individuals are no longer able to stay in independent living units in their communities or stay in their homes, they move into long-term care beds throughout the Northwest Territories. Yes, there is a challenge. There are shortages of beds. We want to keep moving forward with the construction of beds,

and to that end, we have. Shortly, we will have eight new beds opening up in Behchoko, eight new long-term care beds available to NWT residents. Then we will also be opening 18 new beds in Norman Wells, 18 long-term care beds that don’t currently exist within the system. We are also working with Avens to find a way to move forward and develop additional beds in the Avens complex. We have provided Avens with $25,000 to begin work on the development of a concrete business case. This is obviously the first step to move forward with a plan for the construction of additional beds in Avens. The goal of the joint working group, which is the Avens group as well as the department, is to develop a real concrete plan for how to move forward in the capital planning process if they choose to seek GNWT dollars to construct that building.

We have had a number of proposals come in from Avens, as many as four. They have asked us to look at financing through revenues on bed rates and possible inclusion in the extended care unit at Stanton. We did have a discussion with them as part of the Stanton renewal, building or constructing the extended care complex on their compound and make it available for long-term care for seniors in the Northwest Territories. There was money available for that project. It was something we were prepared to move forward, but to their credit, they stuck true to their mandate, which is seniors, and they were uninterested in moving forward. We are exploring lots of options and trying to be creative. They’ve also made formal requests to the department to lift the cap on bed fees. We’ve agreed to explore that option for extended care, to explore that option with them. They’ve come forward with a number of proposals and the Members that were talking yesterday highlighted a couple of those.

The key point is that the change in nature to these proposals has made it difficult for Health and Social Services to respond, and that’s why we set up this joint steering committee, so that we can work together and fully understand and develop a workable proposal. We will continue to work with Avens because we believe this facility is important. We believe these 29 new beds to the Northwest Territories are a step in the right direction. We will continue to work with them until we find a viable and functional plan that will allow us to make that happen. So, we are committed to long-term care beds in the Northwest Territories.

The Member also talks about the P3 project at Stanton, and I’ll say it again, we aren’t and we won’t be privatizing the delivery of health care services in the Northwest Territories. Moving forward, the GNWT does have a public P3 policy that requires all projects over $50 million to be renewed for delivery as a public/private partnership. As a result, a detailed feasibility analysis and business case

was completed that clearly showed that delivery in Stanton under P3 would be the most cost-effective project delivery method. Delivering Stanton as a PC is anticipated to deliver significant value for money to the Northwest Territories and Canada, to be clear, is a mature P3 market with a robust P3 model that has been proven to safeguard the public interest and project delivery.

The Member talked about the eight positions. The eight positions are maintenance staff within the facility. It was suggested that those positions would become affected as early as June and I just want to be clear that that is not the case. There is still a giant ‘if’ around those positions whether or not maintenance services do become part of the P3 moving forward. That hasn’t been determined in any way, shape or form. Out of courtesy to the union, the GNWT gave them a heads-up that this was a possibility. We indicated that we may indeed conclude negotiations as soon as next summer, at which point we’d be in a better position to begin the discussion about how we will implement. The build is a six-year project. I imagine we won’t be done for six years, which means if, and I stress again, if positions are affected, it could be as far away as six years.

In a hypothetical scenario, if those positions are indeed affected and become part of the delivery model for the new facility, we will work with our staff and cooperate with the Union of Northern Workers to make sure that all of our terms and conditions of employment are applied and those positions and those individuals are working, or we work with those individuals to find them meaningful similar types of employment within the Government of the Northwest Territories. There has also been a suggestion that if, and I stress again, if those positions or those functions become part of the new delivery model that those individuals might be interested in working with the provider, we can’t guarantee that they’d be able to get placed with those, but we would certainly be willing to work with our employees and the provider to find ways to make sure that our employees, our most valuable resource, are protected and accommodated accordingly.

But I’ll also go to Minister Miltenberger to talk a little bit more about P3s. The Department of Finance is the lead on this project. As the Minister of Health and Social Services, my priority is making sure that we have a building that meets our clinical and functional need to provide services to the residents of the Northwest Territories while at the same time ensuring that our health and social services are protected and maintained. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. We’ll go to Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Unless there are specific questions

further to the fairly comprehensive response from Minister Abernethy, a lot of mine would just be a repetition. So, we could have that discussion. We do have the policy and we are setting up the P3 corporation. A P3 approach is recognized and encouraged in most jurisdictions, and in this case they’ve done the work, they’ve set a business case, we submitted that last March to committee and that says that the P3 approach is viable and makes sense. As Minister Abernethy said, we’re proceeding down that path. No final determination has been made and no contracts have been signed, but we’re definitely working down the path to that P3 approach. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member, in his comments, also questioned or had some questions around communication. We do have a communications plan in place; we do have a website that individuals can go to, to get additional information. As we move down the individual steps, the lead department will be making sure that that information is public and made aware, and we will continue to work with our partners like the UNW if indeed any positions are affected.

Just in closing on this project, we know this is a massive project, the largest individual build that we’ve ever participated or led in the Northwest Territories. It’s the largest capital project. It’s going to bring significant dollars to the Northwest Territories for construction and operation. We anticipate that this facility, recognizing that it’s going to be bigger, that it’s going to have different infection control standards, that we are going to be improving the ability to provide emergency services and basically all clinical services. It’s a facility that’s going to be state-of-the-art. We also anticipate that we could have anywhere from a couple dozen to several dozen additional UNW positions required in order to operate and provide health services in that building, so more positions will likely, will definitely be coming as a result of this construction. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. General comments. Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I won’t really get into the whole seniors and long-term care facilities in too much detail; we heard quite a bit over the last little while. But I think in terms of just looking for beds, a lot of discussions have been around beds. You’ve got to take it into consideration that we’re talking about beds, but we’re also talking about a safety issue for our elders, especially the ones in the small communities that might be enduring or experiencing things like neglect, elder abuse, financial abuse that we don’t see at the forefront. I think in some cases

when we don’t have those facilities in the small communities, we do need to find them somewhere. Not only that, we do have a long-term care facility in Inuvik and it’s been fully utilized. What we don’t have is a dementia facility. So when we put our senior citizens into such a facility where now they’re dealing with people with dementia or other areas of mental illness, it does have an effect on these individuals that do try to live a more independent lifestyle. To have those beds or areas such as Avens, if they opened it up to more beds territorially, then that’s something we can look into supporting.

Just further on, there’s a lot of talk here around senior citizens, but something that I’ve always been pushing for and have a strong interest, obviously, is in the treatment area. I’ve made comments to the Minister about trying to find something pan-territorially that we can either use some kind of existing infrastructure to provide those programs and services not only to the Northwest Territories but to Nunavut and to Yukon as well. Within those treatment centres or even within the hospital that we have, detox beds are also, I think, very important to have in terms of helping people with those medical conditions when they’re coming off some very strong addictions.

We did get a tour of Hay River not too long ago and looked at their planning studies in the hospital there, and it was brought to my attention that they’re going to have two seclusion rooms in the hospital, which was great to hear. I know we were looking at getting one in Inuvik. I’m not too sure where that is, so maybe I could get an update on that seclusion room in Inuvik and whether or not that was something that was put in place.

One thing that hasn’t really been brought to our attention, but just in terms of our medical equipment, we send a lot of people down south for screening, for tests. I don’t know if the Minister did an inventory or looked at what kind of equipment we have here in Yellowknife or in the communities and looking at what we can do to modernize some of our equipment, whether it’s for screening, whether it’s for other medical purposes and trying to get those up to date, and that way maybe we would save on some costs on sending people down south. That’s something that’s more common.

He did mention infection control standards. Obviously, we have a dental office in the school in Inuvik that’s out of commission because of the new standards that were developed. I don’t know if you want to provide a list or look at the list of the standards that have been changing and doing an inventory across the territory to see how that’s affecting other areas of service that we do provide, whether it’s in the communities, regional centres or even here in Yellowknife, and whether that was

addressed in this capital budget in terms of having to fix buildings up.

Lastly, just the sanitation components are something… I know the hospital was shut down for operations a couple of years ago for a lengthy period of time and people were put on long waiting lists. So just when we’re looking at infrastructure, whether we are building it or not, that it be taken into consideration.

One of my colleagues tabled some photos earlier today of a health centre, and I think that as we look at these standards, this government take a hard look at our sanitary practices in our health centres and in our regions and even here in Yellowknife. The Minister talks about giving the best care and treatment to our residents and, obviously, it looks like we are failing in one community already, and I think that’s something that needs to be addressed. Obviously, it would lead to more illnesses and sicknesses and something that we need to take into consideration when we’re thinking about our patients here and residents.

Just a few comments. I really don’t want to get too much into the seniors homes, but it’s a bigger issue than just beds. It is safety; it is neglect; it is abuse; and when we are looking at best care and services for residents of the NWT, we don’t look at it as a building, we don’t look at it as a room or a bed, we look at it as a resident, the person itself. Thank you, Mr. Chair.