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.