Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m glad the Member asked the question. Contrary to what has been suggested previously in the House, I as a Member, I as the Minister and the department both take this issue incredibly seriously. Within the department of Health and Social Services, our chief clinical advisor is actively involved in putting together a working group and committee, formed consisting of physicians and other health care practitioners, pharmacists and government personnel, to discuss and come up with solutions around the prescription drug abuse issue. Also, the department is working to set standards that will help guide physicians and nurse practitioners on prescribing opiates and other medications, but it’s not just within the department. The medical directors of the Northwest Territories forum is working on guidelines for controlled substances, and these would be territory-wide and include an educational component as well. These guidelines and standards are also going to include some work around the management of opiate dependence as well.

Once again, it’s not just the department and the medical directors. Under the Health Information Act we have the ability under Section 65 to actually put in a monitoring program, which will help provide information and the resources. We need to figure out what is happening with respect to prescription drug abuse.

Lastly, the federal government recently put money into their federal budget to address this issue

because it is such a significant issue and the Ministers of Health across the country are working together to look for ways to address prescription drug abuse. So, a large number of things are happening, and we take this very seriously, and we are working to find solutions and provide tools that will help practitioners as well. Thank you.

Thank you. That was a really good update. I thank the Minister for all the information that he provided. He did mention that under Section 65 of the Health Information Act, which is slowly coming out and developing that monitoring program, I’m assuming that we can’t get that monitoring program until the Health Information Act comes into play here.

Is there anything that we can do to monitor any prescription or prescription drugs in the meantime until the Health Information Act gets ascent? Thank you.

Thank you. In the winter session there was some debate back and forth between myself and MLA Dolynny from Range Lake about our ability to monitor, and the Member did identify a large number of pieces of legislation and indicated that we can do a monitoring program. I was listening very closely to what the Member was saying and I asked the department for a comprehensive legal opinion on whether or not we could, and the department and the lawyers pointed out that we can’t take individual pieces of legislation and think about them independently. We have to look at how they crosslink. The bottom line is we’re still not able to put in the monitoring program. There are some barriers. We will be able to do it with the Health Information Act.

However, it was also suggested to me that with a minor tweak to the Pharmacy Act to include a notwithstanding clause related to the ATIPP, we would actually be able to put in a monitoring program. This is an important issue. I know Mr. Dolynny has raised it; I know Mr. Moses has raised it. We need to move forward on this. So I have come forward with an LP and I have provided to committee that it will allow us to make a minor change to the Pharmacy Act, which will allow us to put in the monitoring program that both Mr. Dolynny and Mr. Moses would like to see in place. Thank you.

Thank you. I think there are a lot of people in the Northwest Territories, especially the families, as well, would like to see that monitoring program in place to help those that are battling addictions of these pain killers and affecting their lives.

The Minister also mentioned a working group. Can we get a timeline as to when that working group will first be meeting and when they’ll get together to start looking at possibly developing a strategy and looking at areas to develop these guidelines on the

monitoring and the tracking of these prescription drugs and looking at some of this legislation? Thank you.

Thank you. I did mention that there are a number of things going on, and there’s work at the federal level, but I’m happy to keep the committee updated on that as we move forward. There’s also the work of the Medical Directors’ Forum and I’m happy, as I get briefings, to provide that information to the committee, as well, but we also have the departmental group that is being led by our chief clinical advisor and that group actually has been convened. Their scheduled first meeting was for May. I will follow up to find out what the results of that meeting were, but there’s so much good work out there being done. As the Member mentioned in his Member’s statement, a number of reports have been done and one of the reports that was done was “First Do No Harm,” which was put together by the federal government, Nova Scotia and Alberta, and that report has been shared with all these different groups so that they can take best practices and lessons learned as they move forward to come up with some solutions. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.I think one of the main things is with the data collection monitoring, with the monitoring system, what kind of data collection will we have on file and how will that be used to develop future strategic plans, and will there be a data component in place and will it include not only drug misuse and over-prescribing but also stats that are related to overdose of prescription drugs? Thank you.

Thank you. Through the Pharmacy Act, with the amendment to the Pharmacy Act we’ll be able to track what has been dispensed. The interpretation of that data will have to be done and we’ll have to come up with some policies to figure out how to do the interpretation of that data so that we can try to understand where the abuses are occurring. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Income Support is a program that the government delivers and it’s targeted for the less fortunate. Usually it’s in the unfortunate circumstances that people find themselves in that they require assistance. So my questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

We’re delivering the productive choices program. What is the process to ensure that host organizations have the desire and the capacity to deal effectively with clients? Mahsi.

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

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Part of the productive choices within the income security division is to provide options for those individuals that are accessing income support. A part of that is by way of productive choices. We are trying to help them and assist them in opening doors for them to better their lives in the future, whether it be workforce development or training. Some of the productive choices, of course, are casual employment, education, there’s also career training, planning, attending wellness programs, parenting a young child, caring for a disabled adult dependent and volunteering. So those are just some of the areas that we want them to engage in, the community, the organizations, so at least they can get their foot in the door with opportunities that may be available to them. Mahsi.

Thank you. I don’t believe I got an answer to the question that I asked. In communities we have limited office spaces. So you’re very fortunate if you go on the productive choices and you work in an office, but most of the time you have to take your productive choices outside. That means you have to do some outdoor work. Most of the time people that have to have productive choices, there are volunteer hours that they have to amass. Some of them, unfortunately, have to go on people’s roofs shovelling snow sometimes and at this time of the year it’s usually picking garbage. So what type of oversight or evaluation is taking place to ensure a productive choices placement is favourable for both clients and the organizations hosting them? Mahsi.

The productive choices, again, we work with the organizations, the corporations and the community to satisfy their needs as well. Those individuals are employable, ready to work and should be out there doing productive choices whether it be on a volunteering basis. I realize that from the small community perspective there may not be huge opportunities to do those productive choices, but we’re working with wellness programming and other programs in the community. So from time to time we do evaluate our productive choices and we’ve made some changes. In 2014 we made some changes. We added wellness programming. So as we move forward, this is a part of the Auditor General’s recommendations that we need to enhance our productive choices and that’s what we’re doing. Mahsi.

I think the point of my question is that, as an example, if someone has to do productive choices, say for their band council or maybe for the hamlet council or maybe for the Metis council, and they’re forced to go on somebody’s roof and they’re shovelling snow and they fall off the roof, who’s liable? That’s the point of my question. I don’t think I got a very confident answer that tells me a…(inaudible)…local organizations that have to take on these responsibilities that they’re covered, and I’m not getting an answer from the Minister.

On the same topic, why are client service officers allowed so much discretion and so much power in administering productive choices placements? How does the government prevent unfair or inconsistent treatment from one client to the next?

Client service officers are there to implement the regulations and the legislation that we pass through this House, and we provide the guidance to them, the direction that they have to follow, the legislation and the rules and regulations that are in place that we have established for them. We are trying to be fair to each and every client service clientele out in the communities, the 33 communities that we service. We have client service officers in most of the communities, and the regional centres assist with those that may not have it. We’re doing what we can in the income security division to assist those individuals. This is intended to be short term. It’s not a long-term subsidy program. We’re trying to get them to productive choices or enter the workforce or training program or such opportunities that may exist.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It seems like the Minister and the department are taking a top-heavy approach, and if you have a top-heavy approach in terms of a system, the small person that’s involved with income support, you know, sometimes they experience a system that, again, does not make their work with income support very good. But I’m encouraged. The Minister has indicated they have evaluated the program before and they have made some changes. I would like to get a commitment from the Minister, if he agrees, that changes to the productive choices are needed.

I don’t see this as a top-heavy approach. I don’t believe in that. I believe in working together. I met with the client service officers, most of them, just a couple months ago, to share their perspectives, coming from a small community perspective, working with the chiefs and working with the council members, community members. As I stated, in 2014 we made changes. The wellness is part of it now and we will continue to make those changes. All those recommendations, ideas and suggestions that are

coming to my office, certainly consider those part of the changes.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are a lot of places to start with today, and by golly, I think I’m going to give the Education Minister the pleasure of my questions today.

May I remind the Education Minister that in Yellowknife the education boards are administrative boards and not advisory boards. Now, in the capital, the YK school boards raise approximately 20 percent of their funding from their tax base.

Perhaps the Minister can explain the funding formula in this situation where YK schools raise part of their own money to educate our students and the difference between the other schools that don’t need to do this, because we need to know what’s changing as he’s out there poaching money from our schools to fund other programs that he dreams up.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I’m not sure where the Member is getting that poaching word from, but we’re dealing with the public purse and we’re dealing with the public funding that we contribute to all school boards across the Northwest Territories, 33 communities, seven regions. We will continue to do so and which will benefit our students.

Let me thank Robin Hood over there for that answer. I want to know from the Minister, is he in a position to fund all Yellowknife school boards at 100 percent, because it’s unfair that in Yellowknife the citizens are double taxed. For the education of anybody following this issue, you pay through your property tax and then that money can go to the school boards where it doesn’t apply elsewhere in the Northwest Territories. The citizens of Yellowknife are being double taxed on this issue. Is he prepared to fund them properly, 100 percent?