Thank you, deputy minister. Mr. Moses.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Can I get confirmation on how much that contract was? How much did we contract with Dalhousie for?

One of the Members earlier talked about nursing in the small communities. As the Minister knows, we have eight communities that don’t have nurses. I wonder if the department would be looking at changing its policy in terms of looking at trying to see if we can staff nurses in some of these communities, but if not, the amount of days that a public health nurse or a nurse would go into the community. I know that in some cases, the Minister mentioned in the House that a public health nurse will go in for two days sometimes. But I wonder if he could change the policy so that there are more frequent visits in the week or else a policy that we can actually staff a nurse in there, and if he’d be open to having discussions with the Department of Justice and working together so that we have the RCMP and the nurse in these communities.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Currently, the communities that don’t actually have permanent nurses, the amount of time that nurses are visiting does vary from community to community based on the level of need and acuity and different things going on in the community, so there is no one number that is actually utilized. Every authority has a slightly different approach.

As I have said to the Member who asked the questions previously, we’re looking at other opportunities. Maybe not a nurse, maybe not an LPN, maybe a high level first responder might be appropriate to be in there on a more permanent basis. But we did learn about other position opportunities in Alaska and we’re exploring those. As we move forward with transition we’ll be in a better position to find some consistency on how we’re supporting the different communities, recognizing that every community in the Northwest Territories has a different degree of need, so we will also have to work with the communities. As I’ve committed, I’m happy to go to communities to meet with leadership and talk about what their specific needs are, what issues they’re trying to address and how working together we can best accomplish those targets.

More of a comment in terms of when we get into the smaller communities that’s where we start to tend to see some of the higher health risks, higher rates of some of our health indicators as well as educational indicators, and I think that if we had somebody staffed in there that can deal with some of the care and treatment but also on the prevention and promotion and education awareness side, I think we could really tackle some of those high rates that we see in the small communities and bring them down so that we start having more healthy and educated people in the small communities and not just saying because of the population we can’t provide those services. I know we do provide those services, but on a more regular basis would be more beneficial, I think, to these communities.

Just moving forward, and in terms of prevention and promotion, I think we’ve been making some really good headway since the beginning of this Assembly and whether or not the Minister sees that there is still a need for prevention and promotion in some of the regions or even across the territory, especially with our high obesity rates. We do have some organizations that have been doing some really good programs to try to combat the high obesity rates, cardiovascular, chronic diseases, and whether or not some of our funding can actually go to those organizations so they can run the programs more effectively and efficiently.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. I’ll take that as a comment. Was there a question there, Mr. Moses?

[Microphone turned off] …he’d be looking at working with these organizations and fund them a little bit more from our programs. I’ve talked about program duplication, but we’ve got organizations out there that are doing really good work on behalf of government and whether the Minister would sit down with these organizations and develop some contributions where they can support these successful programs.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We actually have the new Aboriginal health and community wellness division, and the wellness workers that we have within that division, that is their exact job.

Just in terms of the Anti-Poverty Strategy, I just want to commend the Minister for the work he’s been doing in that and also thank him for allowing standing committee to come to the last round table and meet with the representatives. I think members of the standing committee were really appreciative to see the work that’s been going into that. Just more of a comment and no more questions.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Committee, we’re on page 197, Department of Health and Social Services, community health programs, operations expenditure summary, $144.418 million.

Page 198, community health programs, grants, contributions and transfers, $113.874 million.

Page 200, community health programs, active positions. Questions?

Page 203, community social programs, operations expenditure summary, $28.199 million. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a couple of questions here. The first one has to do with the Child and Family Services Act. There are amendments coming forward for this legislation, from what I understand. I’d like to know from the Minister if the amendments to this piece of legislation are going to require extra expenditures, and if so, where are they in this budget?

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, the bill is coming forward in the next week or two for first reading and second reading, at which point it will be committee’s bill for 120 days. At this

point in time, based on the changes that are coming, we don’t believe that there will be additional costs. We believe it’s a matter of using our money more appropriately and using the existing resources to the best effect, and the changes in the bill will actually give us better direction and better results without adding additional dollars.

Thanks to the Minister. One of the concerns that I have, and it was a fairly major recommendation from the Child and Family Services Act review that was done in the 16th Assembly and it’s been mentioned a number of times in this Assembly as well, is the gap in legislation for coverage for youths basically between 16 and 18 years. First of all, I’d like to ask the Minister if that gap is going to be dealt with in the amendments, and if so, I find it hard to believe that we could increase the services for this particular age group and that it’s not going to cost us money. Could I get an explanation? Thanks.