This is page numbers 3805 – 3850 of the Hansard for the 17th Assembly, 5th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was health.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Kevin A. Menicoche

Kevin A. Menicoche Nahendeh

I’m glad the Minister was able to answer the questions on vacancies and specifically to the Dehcho, as it were, partly in my regional breakup. Social Services calls it Dehcho, but half of it, of course, is the Nahendeh. But certainly it addresses my issue of having job opportunities available for all residents as we move along.

Just with the vacancies alone, I think I spoke last budget in this House about Fort Liard and their need for consistent social work and mental health services. I just want to know if things have been

addressed in Fort Liard. There was a high turnover of social workers. It happened again this year and there’s another turnover of social workers, and the concern about having consistent mental health services. What it is about is that people feel more comfortable and more trustworthy when they’ve got someone that’s long term, somebody’s there that developed a working relationship with them certainly helps with the community wellness and community health and the ability for clients to access treatment services if they are working with someone they trust and can develop a good working relationship. I would just like to know about the efforts to have consistent social work and mental health services in Fort Liard. Thank you.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

I agree with everything the Member has just said with respect to the provision of services and how consistency is certainly the more preferred approach. We continue to have challenges hiring health professionals in the Northwest Territories, especially in some of the smaller communities. We are doing better in some areas than others, but we are still having challenges. This is true for mental health and addictions counsellors as well as community health nurses. I don’t have the exact status of Fort Liard, but I’d be happy to get that for the Member and share that with the Member.

As we move forward with the strategic plan, I’m looking forward to coming to committee and having discussions and stealing your good ideas on how we can improve the recruitment and retention of health care professionals. Obviously, I’d love to have more conversation about what we can do in the communities to encourage our youth to pursue things like nursing and other health related professions.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. We are on page 8-11, information item, active positions, health and social services authorities. Next I have Mr. Moses, followed by Mr. Bouchard. Mr. Moses.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Alfred Moses

Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a quick question here. I know the Minister is familiar with some of the e-mails that have been going back and forth between the Members from the Inuvik region. I see that there are two indeterminate part-time positions that we are losing, but we’re also gaining four intermediate full-time positions. Does the Minister know what those two indeterminate part-time positions are and whether those indeterminate positions are possibly being moved over to full-time positions. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Ms. Mathison.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Mathison

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don’t have the details on the exact position title. They

were internal reallocations done within the authority.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Ms. Mathison. Next I have Mr. Bouchard.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Robert Bouchard

Robert Bouchard Hay River North

Thank you, Madam Chair. A couple of quick questions about the Hay River Health Authority and the positions there. If the department could give me a little more detail and discussion on the union there. They are obviously not a union of ours, but they are highly interested. Have we been having discussions with them about including them in our union? It seems like it’s difficult and inconsistent with this authority versus all the other ones.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister Abernethy.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Hay River Health and Social Services Authority is actually outside of the public service, so the employees and the management in that authority are not GNWT employees in any capacity. We do provide funding to them as we do with other authorities. I believe it was in 2005 I pushed to bring the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority into the public service and the price tag at that time was about $2 million to bring in the pensions and whatnot. We continue to have discussions with the authority. We continue to explore possibilities to bring them in. The price tag has increased we believe significantly and we are doing some analysis on that to figure out what the actual cost to bring them into the public service would be. We will continue to have those conversations, but there is no immediate plan to bring them into the public service. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Robert Bouchard

Robert Bouchard Hay River North

It’s not getting any cheaper. It is something we were interested in seeing, I guess. Is the department going to continue to analyze it? When do you think you will have that analysis complete? When would we be able to look at what the net costs are of doing that?

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

It’s not an easy task, unfortunately. Because we’re talking about pensions and every authority is running on a… Sorry, that authority is running on a different pension system. We’re pretty much going to have to do a manual calculation on every employee to figure out what those costs would be and what it would cost to bring over. We should be able to get it done by the end of the upcoming fiscal year, but it is going to take a bit of time to do a thorough, comprehensive analysis. Thank you.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Robert Bouchard

Robert Bouchard Hay River North

I am just wondering if we’ve used any professionals such as an actuary to look at those actual costs.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

That was done in the past when we did the assessment previously in

2005. I am pretty sure that’s accurate, I might be off a little bit. We would have to do the same to make sure that if we move forward and it is reasonable to move forward based on cost, that we are basing it on fully understood numbers.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Robert Bouchard

Robert Bouchard Hay River North

I wonder what the other barriers are, I guess. Is it all financial? What are the complications of not having them in the GNWT system?

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

I remember this because I was involved in it the last time. The last time we were pursuing it, in 2005, we had to write all new job descriptions to make them consistent with the GNWT format. We had to get them all evaluated and consistent with our form of evaluation, the Hay method of evaluation. Then we were getting ready to move forward with the next step, which would be to terminate their employment with the Hay River authority and offer them employment with the new GNWT Hay River authority. Then we’d have to make sure that all of them would have the opportunity to go through the process where they were protected where they had first right of refusal on jobs. We protected them. So there was a significant amount of work making that happen. On top of that, there is the cost of bringing over the pension and making sure their futures are protected. It’s a significant amount of work.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Robert Bouchard

Robert Bouchard Hay River North

I wonder what the impediments are having an authority like this outside of the GNWT. What difficulties are we experiencing? There is a cost to that pension, but there is also maybe a cost or a difficulty in operating one authority that is stand-alone and the remainder of them under the GNWT umbrella.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

It does complicate some of the work we’re doing now moving to a shared services model because with that particular authority, we’re going to have to have separate contracts to allow us to have those types of discussions and work together on those particular arrangements. So it does create some complications from having territory-wide shared service and guaranteeing everyone the same standard of shared service as well as shared products, shared purchasing, shared finance, shared IT. It does complicate all of those things.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Next on my list I have Mr. Moses.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Alfred Moses

Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to ask the Minister on our indeterminate, full-time positions for the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority, because we’re just approving the numbers here today, we don’t see the full structure of how positions are allocated within the system. Can I ask the Minister, is the authority losing any positions but gaining other positions in other areas? I see there are four and I’m assuming

we’ll have all the same positions when I look at this, four new ones, but I don’t see if there is going to be any positions that are lost and more positions put in another area within the health authority. Can the Minister confirm, please?

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Mr. Abernethy.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

Thank you, Madam Chair. Other than those positions we already discussed, I believe it’s the same. We will confirm and get that information for the Member. Thank you.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Alfred Moses

Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake

I appreciate that. I know when we’re looking at these numbers, we’re not just looking at numbers and positions but there are people behind these positions and jobs are lost. There’s a chance we’re affecting families. We talk about increasing the population if jobs are lost within the authority. Specifically on the next page when we go into shared services, that’s potentially three families leaving the Beaufort-Delta Health Authority in Inuvik, so it’s really difficult while we approve the numbers fully, that possibly there are some numbers in there that can be affected. I just want to state that for the record. Yes, it would be hard to prove when it can possibly affect families in the region. Thank you.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

As the director of finance pointed out, there’s no job loss with these things; some things have been re-profiled. The authorities have a mandate or requirement to provide services to meet the needs of their residents in their particular region and they do, from time to time, have to describe some of their work and change some of their positions and they would come through the normal process to do that to meet their mandate that we approve through this process.

Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters

The Chair

The Chair Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Next I have Mr. Bromley.