Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Madam Speaker. I don’t have the breakdown of how many times we met or how many agencies, but I can provide the breakdown to the Member.

With the proposed funding that’s within the budget, we are allocating upwards of $511,000 towards this wage subsidy. There were suggestions and ideas that came forward and, again, we have to backtrack to the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, Early Childhood Development Framework, the engagement we have had with the general public, the agencies, the child care workers. They’ve told us their wage is so low, minimum $17,000 to $22,000 a year, so we felt that we needed to follow up on that so that we can have those highly skilled individuals at a going rate today.

So we are following through on what we’ve been told by parents, by our communities and we’re moving forward on that. Mahsi.

Thanks to the Minister, and I don’t disagree that we need to do something for our early

childhood practitioners. They definitely are not paid what they’re worth, but I’m struggling to understand. The Minister didn’t really answer my question as to where this approach came from. I find it unlikely that the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative would have laid out this kind of an approach to increasing wages for early childhood practitioners.

My next question to the Minister has to do with how this program is going to work. I am struggling to understand just how this is going to roll out, so I’d like to ask the Minister for some details.

Will the funds go to individual teachers? Will they go to the daycare or the preschool operators? What’s the plan? Thank you.

The money that’s identified, once it’s passed through this House in the budget we will then be working with licensed early childhood centre operators to ensure the funding is applied directly to increasing of staff wages. So those are the targeted individuals, individuals with low wages so we can at least subsidize them. In 2014, in April, that’s when the $2 addition will be added on. The following year in April will be another $1 addition and the subsequent years will be based on certification, diplomas or degrees they’ve obtained will be waged at the top of this. Those are just the discussions that we’ve had.

When I mentioned the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, we spoke generally about the education of all of the Northwest Territories that covered early childhood as well. So that’s why we refer back to the Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, Early Childhood Development Framework and now we’re going through education renewal. Those are some of the discussions we’ve been engaged in with the general public. Mahsi.

Thanks to the Minister for that detail. He’s taking me to my next question, which has to do with certification.

The Minister, in his statement, said we’re also putting in place a credentialing system, scholarships and incentives for early childhood development professionals. So I’d like to know from the Minister, I agree completely that we need to have our early childhood professionals certified and they need to be certified to a national standard, but I’d like to know from the Minister if, in 2016, certification is going to increase the wages of our professionals. So I’d like to know, again, how this system is going to work. I think it’s a grand idea, I think it’s needed, but I don’t understand how it’s going to work. What kind of credentialing system are we going to put in place? Thank you.

Mahsi. That’s the information and the direction that we need to work with the child care centres and especially the daycare operators. They would have a handle on

how many are in the system, how many are getting their certification or diploma and the degree programs. So 2016-2017 onward we want to identify those individuals.

We have, I believe, if I’m not mistaken, approximately 30 individuals that are in the professional fields in post-secondary. Obviously, we want to attract them to the Northwest Territories to work in our centres across the Northwest Territories. So this will be an incentive for them to come back to our region, our communities to work for us. That’s the overall plan to develop some attractiveness and also some incentive for those individuals to come back to our North. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m struggling to understand the system. I guess if I’m given two years in which to get my certification but I’m also working full-time, I’m really struggling to understand how I’m supposed to accomplish that.

I have heard that there will be an on-line system or an on-line program, I guess, but for me to take stuff on-line, I think it’s going to take quite a long time. So, I’d like to know from the Minister if he has looked at the amount of time that’s going to be required for any professional to get the certification that’s required for them to get the greater wage that they deserve. Thank you.

Yes, it will take time in various areas, but we, as a department, will be working closely with the daycare operators because we want those individuals to achieve their goals and dreams of either certification, diploma or a degree program. We will be establishing up to 10 $5,000 scholarships for these individuals to access. So we’re doing what we can to send those individuals out while they’re still working. So, obviously we want to create some incentives. That’s what we’re doing and this is a process where we are currently working with the operators at this point in time. Mahsi.

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

Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. With regard to the statistics related to attempted suicides, data would actually be incredibly difficult to collect because there are multiple diagnoses that an individual coming in who has attempted suicide or believed to have attempted suicide might come in with. Client diagnosis codes would often be related to the method of attempted suicide, how somebody chooses to attempt to take their own life. So, there would be multiple different codes that would be used. So, as a result, it would be very difficult to provide that information. Thank you.

The reason I bring this up is we do have a Mental Health Act that does allow for physicians and practitioners to hold an individual for up to 24 hours, that’s the first step, and in a lot of cases, should there be alcohol involved, sometimes the individuals are let out of the care and treatment of the health centre or the hospital, and that’s why these kind of statistics would be good to help develop a better plan of action in terms of what steps can the authorities or the hospitals do or the health centres do to keep these people in care until they are ready to get a full assessment.

I’d like to ask the Minister, does the department have a suicide prevention plan currently that they can put into action here? Does the department have a suicide prevention plan?

There are a number of different things that happen depending on the location you’re at. The NWT Community Counselling Standards Manual has a standard on crisis intervention, which would respond to crisis situations similar to suicide or attempted suicide. The standard identifies suicide protocols and procedures for action to be taken, documentation and screening, such as the mental status examination and suicide risk assessments. So those happen in the community if somebody presents with an attempted suicide. The manual also includes suicide prevention resources that an individual may access.

When it comes to Stanton and/or the Inuvik Regional Hospital, there are some additional things that may happen. When a client presents to the hospital – Stanton, that is – having attempted suicide, medical stabilization and care is the first priority. We want to make sure the person is safe. Following stabilization, a referral to an appropriate psychiatric service is initiated and the psychiatric unit at Stanton Hospital have a suicide precaution policy, which includes suicide risk assessment.

Within the Inuvik Regional Hospital, a standardized assessment tool is used for conducting suicide risk assessment. Clients who have been medevaced

from an outlying community are often admitted to the hospital for 24 hours of observation and then risk assessments are conducted on the individual and the risk assessments also must include a plan of care. So, depending on where you are, different things will happen, but there are protocols and programs in place to support all those individuals.

Thank you. You’ve heard in this House before there’s been a call from some of the Members that represent small communities for an RCMP officer and nurse. As I stated, we have 65 councillors in 19 communities but we have 33 communities in the Northwest Territories, and in some of these communities we only have a nurse that can provide that type of care or services or even counselling.

Being this is such a big issue, and not looking at it this way when a person really needs that help for some intervention, how is the Minister going to address not having that nurse or that counsellor in a small community for the immediate responses that sometimes we don’t always see because of the lack of resources that we have in some of these small communities?

I recognize from the Member’s earlier statements that obviously face to face is preferable. That is not always the case, but we do have an ability to have individuals call certain professionals and receive services by telephone or by telehealth. But it’s not just a matter of the professional provider. We are eager and interested in helping individuals within communities develop skills so that they can provide support to the individuals. One of the things that we are doing is Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training, which we are offering across the Northwest Territories.

As you all know, ASIST is an internationally recognized, well-researched training program that is based on best practices in suicide prevention and intervention. It is a two-day workshop, and we are looking to have it delivered across the Territories for any individual who wishes to take it so that they can be aware of the signs of individuals who may be at risk, so we would continue to get that out there for all people.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Final supplementary, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. That training program, ASIST, I have heard nothing but good things about it.

Would the Minister, in terms of that training, look at possibly putting that program in the areas where we don’t have a nurse or we don’t have an RCMP officer as a priority of the first places that we get that training to? Would he do that, and also, if he can also maybe share with the House how many communities actually do have that ASIST training in place right now?

The ASIST program, we have put dollars in the budget so that every authority can deliver two ASIST programs or two training workshops. To date, in ’12, ’13, ‘14, 144 individuals across the Northwest Territories have taken that training, and we will continue to encourage the authorities to use the dollars they have received to deliver that program in as many communities as they can over time.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. The Minister for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. My questions are for the Premier today. I’d like to start by noting that a democracy works best when all citizens are able to speak their minds.

Would the Premier not agree that we should welcome respectful input from everyone if we want to get the best result?

The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Madam Speaker, that depends on the question. Thank you.