This is page numbers 4225 – 4252 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 public.

Topics

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

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

Alfred Moses

Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and recognize the hard work and efforts of the NWT Recreation and Parks Association. From January 7th to March

4th , residents of the Northwest Territories

participated in the event, The Walk to Talk Challenge. With records this year, we had 102 teams participate, and out of the 102 teams that participated, 73 had actually made it to Tuk, and I understand there were other teams that did make it but didn’t have their times submitted on time as well.

The grand total of kilometres that were logged was 207,808 kilometres.

---Applause

Now, to put it into perspective, the circumference of the earth is just over 40,000 kilometres, so, really, NWT residents collectively walked around the earth circumference five times. Good job. Way to go to the NWT residents and way to go to the NWTRPA for putting this on.

I have a couple more stats to share here. The hours of walking equaled 48,918 hours of walking. On average, each participant accumulated 245 minutes of weekly exercise. Now, the Canadian physical activity guidelines suggest that each individual at least put in 150 minutes weekly in some type of activity. NWT residents went above and beyond that and put in 95 more minutes weekly, so good job to them.

I just want to make note that this program happens during some of our coldest and darkest months of the year, when some people might be going through depression, might be suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder, so this program gets people out, active and healthy.

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank the NWTRPA for their ongoing hard work, dedication and commitment to the health and active lifestyles and well-being of the residents of the Northwest Territories. I would also like to congratulate all teams and all residents who participated in this great program. Good job and way to go. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Item 4, reports of standing and special committees. Item 5, returns to oral questions. Item 6, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Item 7, acknowledgements. Item 8, oral questions. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Health and Social Services. I spoke about the young person who was hit by a skidoo and I wanted to ask, after she was taken to the local health centre and assessed, it was only after two days.

Do you know any reasons why it took two days to get her medevaced out of that community?

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have been briefed on the situation. I would be happy to have a conversation with the Member, but I’m not prepared to speak about an individual or her individual case here in the House. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Mr. Speaker, on the medical travel, is that common practice when somebody is seriously injured in the community in the Northwest Territories that it takes a couple days to medevac the person out? Is that in the policy?

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

Mr. Speaker, medical travel and medevac are two different policies. With respect to medevacs, obviously we want to get the individuals out of the communities and to appropriate care in as timely a manner as possible. There are obviously some situations where timing might be affected, but we do attempt to get individuals out as quickly as possible.

Once again, I would be happy to talk to the Member in private about the individual case. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Thank you. I’m just looking at the situation here for a medevac. Quickly as possible is probably two days in this situation to get this young lady out in a life and death situation. Then when she gets to Edmonton, the doctors give a different assessment. Are the assessments communicated with communities when there are serious incidents like this? Are these doctors notified and saying, get this person out as quick as possible? In this case it was two days.

What type of situation is there with the health centres when a situation is an emergency where the person needs to get out as quickly as possible?

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

Mr. Speaker, it’s difficult to answer the questions without getting into the specifics of the individual and I’m not prepared to speak about the individual case. If an individual is injured in a community, usually the community health nurses will be in touch with the Stanton

emerg if that’s the particular location where a doctor is available and where somebody needs to go to.

We are moving forward with Med-Response, which is actually a program that will give all the health centres and all the communities direct access to a physician who will then help coordinate medical travel and expedite the process where appropriate. That system goes live on April 1st and we’re looking

forward to that system. Once it goes live, I would love to invite the Social Programs committee to come to the location where it is and meet the staff and look at the types of services we’re providing. But it will improve this type of response in the future, recognizing that there are always outside influences, such as weather and other things, that could possibly affect medical travel.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

I look forward to the review of the medical travel in this situation. It has certainly failed her in this case here.

I want to ask the Minister, is it a policy when a patient from any community requests an escort in this type of situation, is an escort then automatically granted or is it within the power of the nurse to deny the medical escort for a patient?

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

Thank you. Once again, medical travel and medevacs are different things recovered under different policies. We are currently doing the review, which I’ve talked about a number of times in this House, on the Medical Travel Policy and I look forward to sharing those results and that progress with Members as we move forward.

With respect to medevacs, we are currently out for an RFP. The RFP closed last week and we hope to have a provider for air ambulance in the coming while here, but when it comes to medevacs, the ability to have an escort could be dependent on a number of things, plane sizes and all these types of things. So the answer isn’t immediate and it isn’t an immediate yes. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

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

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement with questions for the Minister of the social envelope today, Minister Abernethy. The Minister has been working hard on an Anti-Poverty Strategy and more recently an Anti-Poverty Action Plan. The strategy and plan are based around five pillars.

Could the Minister explain which pillar addresses the poverty traps that are built into our income

security programs that I’ve been talking about for the last three days? Mahsi.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have the Member’s comments and I appreciate his perspective. I agree that we need to do more to support the individuals, to break down the barriers to keep them out of poverty. We do have five pillars: children and family support, healthy living and reaching our potential, safe and affordable housing, sustainable communities and integration of services. I think all of these combined start addressing the issues. Maybe not to the degree the Member would like to see. Clearly, some more work is necessary and I’m happy to work with the other Ministers on the Social Envelope Committee to try and break down some of these barriers to benefit all of our residents and keep them out of that poverty trap that the Member continues to refer to. Thank you.

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

I appreciate the Minister’s openness here. I know the Minister has stated that he’s committed to eradicating poverty and I believe him and fully support this goal. But I’d like to know, how will we know we have reached that goal? The income support system traps people in an income zone that does not even provide people enough to eat.

Will the Anti-Poverty Action Plan develop a definition of a poverty line or perhaps a poverty zone, income zone, that will allow us to know what we are aiming for? Mahsi.

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

Thank you. I’ve had that discussion, that exact discussion with people all over the Northwest Territories, including on Cabinet and Members themselves and members of our original action team that put together the framework. I’ll have that discussion with the group that’s actually working on the territorial action plan, as well, but the feedback I get on a regular basis is how do you truly define poverty, and I hear that that’s what the Member is asking us to do, but many individuals who might fall under what one person might consider a poverty line don’t feel like they’re living in poverty. It’s about an ability to live life to its fullest, depending on the expectations of the individual.

So it may be really complicated to come up with that true definition. If the Member has something in mind, I’d love to hear it. Thank you.

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

Thank you. I think there are a lot of people out there that could make suggestions that are caught in these poverty traps, but I’ll take the Minister’s offer and work with him on that.

I know the Minister and I have the same goal here, so I hope he takes these points as constructive and friendly suggestions.

Would the Minister commit to including the six recommendations I made this morning on income support in the anti-poverty work that he is doing? Mahsi.

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

I have a copy of the statements that the Member made today and I’m happy to take it to the Social Envelope Committee of Cabinet to have some further discussions. I’ll also share it with the working group that we have working on the territorial action plan and we’ll continue to have those discussions. I’m not committing to necessarily doing these things, but I think it’s important to have the discussion and finding a way to get to the same goal that the Member and I share. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I don’t claim to have all the answers. A critical look is more than fair.

This morning the Minister was on the radio talking about child protection with the greatest source factor being neglect. Does the Minister share my assessment that child protection issues and many of social, health and corrections issues are actually symptoms of families living in poverty, and investing in poverty reduction will address this underlying cause saving us money in the long term?

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

The Member and I were both on the review of the Child and Family Services Committee in the 16th Assembly, and that

was one of the clear recommendations, and we believe that. I still believe that is one of the key findings of that review that we did and is one of the reasons that I’ve worked hard on the Anti-Poverty Action Plan and the Anti-Poverty Framework. I continue to champion for the territorial development of a territorial action plan. The answer is yes, I think we can do better in that area. This morning I talked about neglect on the radio and that we need to move forward with some fundamental change on how we’re providing supports to families to avoid having children apprehended.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.