Thank you, Madam Chair. I would just like to welcome the Minister and his staff joining us today. I think you could tell by some of the discussions and correspondence from some of the Members here that there is still a lot of concern in
this department, but before we get into some of the questions, I guess concerns that I might have, I just want to commend the department on the work that they’ve been doing with standing committee over the last three years and four months in terms of the onset of this government.
Over that period of time we’ve developed an Anti-Poverty Strategy, given some good input into that, the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan and the action plan to transform child and family services which is huge, it’s really big. I think that’s going to really affect the safety and the health and well-being of our children in the Northwest Territories that are being apprehended and looking at where they’re going. The Early Childhood Development Action Plan, which is looking at investing in our people at an early age so that one day, hopefully, we’ll have a new generation of healthy, educated people, which will reach one of our goals of this Assembly, which is to have a goal of healthy, educated people free from poverty, Madam Chair.
I commend the work that the department has been doing in moving forward on the governance structure. I think that will bring everything in order, in terms of all the departments and the way we do business in this department with the Department of Health. Programs and services will take the best practices from a certain region and try to apply it throughout all the Northwest Territories and all the regions. The work that’s been going into prevention and promotion, you know, it’s something that standing committee has been very supportive of and has been pursuing and has been trying to invest in right at the onset of this government. Obviously, the legislation that we’ve been dealing with over the last three years has been very critical in how we do business within this House and within the government.
With that said, there’s been a lot of good work that standing committee as well as Members that have come to standing committee and the department have been doing in moving forward to build that foundation that will not only guide the remainder of this government but for future governments, the 18th , the 19th . These action plans should, hopefully,
like you said, won’t have results right away but you will see them in a few years. The system that we currently have is very complex.
The Minister and I’m sure the staff know that, you know, having all these authorities and the way we do business, the cultural aspect of it and the traditions that some of our people practice make it a complex system, and there are many challenges and barriers as we move forward. I’m just saying that I know there’s a lot of challenges and barriers and one of those is trying to make residents of the Northwest Territories more accountable in living a healthier lifestyle. That’s where we get into the
prevention and promotion and want to try to get that onset and look at how we do that.
As I said in my reply to the budget address yesterday, you know, we have some of the best programs and services in all of Canada and it’s getting to the point where we’re making our residents rely on government programs and services. That’s where we’re seeing this increased budget, $1.6 billion for about 43,800 people in the Northwest Territories, which is very high and it continues to build.
With that, Madam Chair, this department, from our first budget of this 17th Legislative Assembly, 2012-
2013, to the budget we’re going to be looking at passing in this sitting has increased in the life of this Assembly almost $57 million and that’s an increase of 16.3 percent. Again, we see it here with an increase in this budget of $14.9 million from last year. Under the direction of government, we were all supposed to go through a fiscal restraint policy and look at where we can see funding. However, like I said, we get residents that rely on our programs and services, and as a result, we’re more reactive than proactive. We tend to put more money into these programs rather than looking at prevention and promotion, trying to keep people out of the health care system, and I think that’s got to be another priority. I know some of the work that the Aboriginal health division is doing is taking that stance of looking at how do we do prevention and promotion in a better way, especially with the chronic disease management and care.
At the onset of the 17th Legislative Assembly, when
we met with all the deputy ministers, one of the things that were highlighted was that our biggest cost driver within this government is mental health and addictions. I think every Member on this side of the House that has made general comments has mentioned mental health and addictions, and we’re following the same Mental Health Act. I know there are discussion papers out there. I think it really needs to be the priority. If we want to cut down the cost in this area, the Mental Health Act needs to be a priority. It’s a huge act. Since its ascension in 1987, it hasn’t had any significant changes to it. It’s good to see that we’re going to be modernizing it and getting it up to date.
In terms of mental health and addictions, we have the on-the-land training program; we have Mental Health First Aid; we have those four contracts we do down south. What we don’t have and what we need is the follow-up. When these people come out of the programs, we need a support system there that can contact these 12 people at any one time, or the ones that do come out of care and treatment, to see how they are doing, but not only the follow-up there but the support system while they’re in treatment down south. In some cases we might get residents that go down to treatment and might be
into a culture that they might not even be used to. They might be going down for alcohol treatment but they might be with people who have stronger addictions. I think that’s something that we need to look at and take into consideration. I’m looking at my time here and it’s running short.
Some other concerns that I have is last week we talked with the Premier on Third-Party Accountability Framework, not-for-profit organizations that do work on behalf of government. This goes back to program duplication. We may be running programs. There might be some non-profit organizations that are running programs. Let them run the programs. Let’s support them with the services and resources that we need. Why do we have to duplicate it and make things more complicated for residents?
With the time remaining that I have, the big one is the child and family resources. I think that, when I talked to child protection workers, one thing that they mentioned to me is that they need more money to do the work that they’re doing, which is huge.
The other thing that I have a concern with is the Early Childhood Development Initiative. This is the department that really wanted to go ahead and take the lead on that with the more critical years of early childhood development between zero and three, two being the most critical of those years getting them ready for school, and we wanted this department to take the lead on that.
However, this department has been doing a great job on the Anti-Poverty Strategy and taking the lead on that. I commend them for that.
Chronic disease management is always a big one and oral health. Oral health and speech pathology go hand in hand. Every time we’ve gone through these operation budget practices or where we are approving the budget, oral health has always come up, and I know that’s a challenge for the department to move forward on.
With the governance structure, early on at the beginning of this government, members from the Beaufort-Delta met with the then-Minister of Health to talk about creating an advisory council that would give suggestions, recommendations to our health authority in the Beaufort-Delta. We are going into the last few months and hopefully we’ll even see it become a reality. So, it just kind of goes to show how our government works. It does take a long time and making the necessary amendments to certain legislation and bills.
I’m seeing if there’s anything that I didn’t forget here that I wanted to bring up. With that, I just want to make comments that, as a standing committee, we do go through all these action plans, all these reports, correspondence with a fine comb. We look at it in detail and look at how we can make the best
possible legislation, best possible programs for residents of the North.
Just for the record, I want to just state that in 2014-15 the standing committee did bring in four motions directly related to this department that were defeated. One was on oral health care, which is still a concern for many residents of the North. One is for the child and family resources programs and services which, like I said, I heard loud and clear from child protection workers that they need money. That was defeated in the tune of $1.2 million. Another one for the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan, which is our biggest cost driver. We tried to invest $2 million to implement that plan; that got defeated. As we go through the budget, we’ll see there has been an increase in that budget. The last one was for early childhood development, as I said the critical years for our youth and our children, in the tune of $2 million to help with our employees that do those services or those people that do services on behalf of government. That was also defeated in the tune of $2 million.
There are lots of concerns. Like I said, this is a complex government. I see that my time has run out. I don’t really need a response. As we go into detail, I’ll ask some more specific questions. I do commend the work that the department has done, working with committee, and commend the work that committee has done in getting to this budget as well. Thank you, Madam Chair.