This is page numbers 4253 – 4284 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 land.

Topics

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery

Robert Bouchard

Robert Bouchard Hay River North

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d also like to recognize Kim Mabbitt from Hay River. Thank you.

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery

Yellowknife South

Bob McLeod

Bob McLeod Premier

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize the Pages that have been here all week, especially two Pages from Yellowknife South: Benjamin Karstad and Brittney Bessette. I also want to recognize Charlie Furlong and Joanne Deneron. Welcome to the House. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Ramsay.

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Kam Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a couple of visitors from out of town. I’ve got Mike Pearson from London, England, and Jack Bertini from Toronto. Welcome to the House. I also want to recognize Mr. Mark Salvor. He’s a senior policy analyst with ITI and I know Mark has done a great deal of work on devolution and getting us closer to April 1st . Thanks, Mark, for

all your good work on devolution. Also, I’d like to recognize Mr. Charlie Furlong and Joanne Deneron. I’ve got a Page that I wanted to recognize, Gianna Debogorski from the good riding of Kam Lake. Thank you.

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Abernethy.

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a few people, as well, and I’d like to start by recognizing a couple of the Pages here from the Great Slave riding: Isabel Wilson and Joseph Cameron. I’d like to thank you both for everything that you’ve done for us over the last couple of weeks. We truly appreciate what all the Pages do for us. I’d also like to recognize a constituent, Mark Salvor. Nice to see you in the gallery.

Yesterday I made a statement in the House about a cancer video that will be premiered in the Great Hall later today and I’d like to recognize Charlie Furlong, who is in the video and is here to participate in that presentation, and Joanne Deneron as well. Wonderful to see you. Thank you.

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Mr. Yakeleya.

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to recognize a young Page that was serving us. His name is Ben Karstad. Ben and my son Chase practice karate together, so I want to recognize him. I would also like to recognize the chief from Aklavik, Charlie Furlong, and his partner, Joanne Deneron. Thank you.

Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery
Recognition of Visitors in the Gallery

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. I’d like to welcome everybody here in the gallery today and thank you for taking in our proceedings.

Item 6, acknowledgements. Item 7, oral questions. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.

Daryl Dolynny

Daryl Dolynny Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I spoke of the recently tabled statistical data of no-show rates for our various specialists, practitioners, travel clinics and our operating rooms.

Alarming information shows that health care no-show rates have not really resolved themselves in the Northwest Territories. This begs to ask some questions today of the Minister responsible, which is the Minister of Health and Social Services.

Before we begin to get into the details of these no-show rates and what can be done about them, I think committee found that the recently tabled Health annual report to be rather limited in information on this topic.

Can the Minister indicate why the department could not report the no-show rates for practitioners outside of Yellowknife and the Sahtu? What were the barriers of this reporting?

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

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

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will certainly get some more detailed information for the Member on this, but one of the challenges we face getting data from other authorities is the fact that every authority in the Northwest Territories is operated on different IT/IS/IM systems, they have different accounting systems, but we will continue to work with the authorities to get that information and I will provide some more detail to the Member once I get it from the department. Thank you.

Daryl Dolynny

Daryl Dolynny Range Lake

Thank you. I appreciate the Minister’s response to that. Having a more complete picture of our no-show rates begins with expanding the scope of the performance measures.

Can the Minister indicate why the no-show rates for travel clinics and operating rooms were not included in the department’s Health and Social Services Annual Report, and is he able to maybe offer some statistics on that in the House today? Thank you.

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

Thank you. I don’t have any of those statistics in front of me today, but I’ll certainly get that information from the department and share with the Member.

As far as the travel clinics and whatnot, we have the same problem that we do here in Yellowknife. This is a big issue for us. We know there are significant costs on the system. I do know that the Member had a life previous to government where he was in health care outside of the public service, so I’d really be interested in his ideas and concepts for helping us improve the no-show rates. A number of things need to happen, we get that, and I’m certainly looking forward to the Member’s input as we move forward.

Daryl Dolynny

Daryl Dolynny Range Lake

I appreciate that and I will definitely work with the Minister if he’s asking for it.

As to the question of what the department is actually doing to mitigate these no-show rates, can the Minister clearly articulate what his department’s policy on addressing this issue is? Thank you.

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

Thank you. Recognizing that we have eight health and social services authorities in the Northwest Territories, each with their own unique challenges and their own unique realties, some being all community-based, some being more regional centre-based, some being hospital-based, like Stanton, each one of them has developed their own policy or their own procedures around trying to encourage people to attend their appointment. One thing we do, and all the authorities do, is I know that they do encourage people to let the authorities know, or the practitioners know, when they’re not going to be able to make it. That way appointments can be rebooked, but when people just don’t show up, that is a big problem and that’s something that, I agree with the Member, more work needs to be done. Each of the authorities has their own plan to deal with that because each authority is unique with their own unique challenges. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

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

Daryl Dolynny

Daryl Dolynny Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For my final question, everything we do or don’t do has a cost to the taxpayer.

Can the Minister quantify and indicate to the House what is the potential financial impact on the entire health care system with these no-shows? Thank you.

Glen Abernethy

Glen Abernethy Great Slave

Thank you. It would be very difficult to give an exact dollar figure for that because the reason an individual might not attend an appointment or, rather, the appointment the individual misses may have a significantly different cost than an appointment that another individual misses. So, just having a number of missed appointments doesn’t really help us quantify it. We would have to dig in for each appointment, figure out what the procedures that were supposed to be done would have been and work from there. This

would take a significant amount of work. We do believe it’s significant.

I do agree with the Member that this is something that we need to continue to work on, and once again, I’m very interested in the Member’s opinions and thoughts on this with respect to his previous experience as a health provider outside of the public service. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask a question to the Minister of ITI. This morning on CBC we heard representatives from the Fort Nelson First Nation Band talk about the impacts of hydraulic fracking in the area. Certainly they have their challenges and it’s good to hear their stories for the Sahtu.

I want to ask the Minister, in regards to the activity that is happening up in the Sahtu region, has this department been calculating or analyzing some of the benefits that are going on with the recent economic development activities?

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Certainly, there’s been some significant advancement in the Sahtu because of the activity that’s taking place there. In Tulita, for example, we’ve seen a number of Aboriginal-owned businesses in Tulita, be it six in 2010. Last year we had 28 Aboriginal-owned businesses in Tulita and I think that says a lot.

We’ve seen grocery sales go up 200 percent, vacancy rate at the hotels in Norman Wells are up around the 90 percent mark. We’ve seen a number of people be employed. You can also look at a figure like 150 percent in the amount of gas that’s been purchased. Grocery sales are up 300 percent. There is obviously a lot happening. There is a lot of money being spent in the Sahtu. A lot of people are working, and some other telling statistics are we’ve seen the amount of income support – and I know this question came up in the House the other day on income support – in the Sahtu drop by $1 million in the last two years. I think that’s a great figure to put out there. Thank you.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Mr. Speaker, going back to the two ladies, the chief and the lands director from Fort Nelson, they talked about striking a balance. Certainly we hear the benefits that Mr. Ramsay indicated. Now we are talking about striking a balance of the economic benefits plus looking at the sustainability of our land, water and animals. Mr.

Ramsay communicated with the Minister of ITI. We are actually on the verge of a huge turning point in the Northwest Territories.

Is there some type of discussion with his department and ENR, saying we need to look at balance with the land and with the economic development that is happening in the Sahtu?