Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, through you and with your assistance here, I’d like to point out in the gallery someone I’ve worked with earlier in 2014, Mr. Kevin Hynes who is the president of the Yellowknife Firefighters Association, here for Bill 45. Thank you.

I’d like to welcome everybody here in the public gallery. Thank you for taking in our proceedings today.

Item 6, acknowledgements. Item 7, oral questions. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe we need a made-in-the-North solution to the issue of supporting the residential school survivors that will provide intensive support for all these survivors.

I want to ask the Minister, will the Minister investigate the feasibility of a pan-territorial facility for treating addictions and mental health issues of residential school survivors? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I did have some initial conversations with the Minister of Health and Social Services for Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. They have since stopped being the Ministers of Health and Social Services, so I will follow up with the new Ministers to see if there’s any interest in a pan-territorial approach. Thank you.

That’s certainly good news on this side of the House here. I look forward to the Minister’s follow-up.

Lately I’ve been trying to address the problems experienced by the residential school survivors who have been convicted of a violent or sexual crime and who have been turned away from addictions treatment programs. These men are falling between the cracks.

As an alternative, will the Minister commit to funding intensive individual therapy sessions for these men, or looking at a mobile treatment program?

We do provide a continuum of care and supports for individuals who are suffering from addictions here in the Northwest Territories, from community counsellors, we’re trying to extend the Matrix program, which is an outpatient treatment program that can be delivered in different communities throughout the Northwest Territories which these individuals would have access to.

Our difficulty has been that a number of the facilities out there that provide residential treatment have policy and procedures about not allowing individuals with certain criminal records into co-ed facilities. So, I will work with the Member and we will try to articulate the programs that are available for these individuals today, and when there are specific cases we will certainly work with the individuals to meet their needs. Thank you.

My question for the Minister of Health, I’ve been told that one of the weaknesses of the Nats'ejee K'eh facility was its failure to fully make use of the free counselling offered by Health Canada to residential school survivors. Can the Minister comment on this claim?

That claim has never been made to me. I’d certainly be interested in where it came from and we could certainly look into the details, but that is not something that has been articulated to me in the past.

Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the Minister’s Forum on Addictions, in the recommendations…There are over 60 recommendations, 67 to be exact, the recommendations are to help with the interagency of our small communities.

I want to ask the Minister, can he commit to give direction to the health workers under his authority to work with the other agencies, such as the police, the counsellors, to look at how they deal with mental health patients in the community so that they do not fall through the cracks when they need help from a small community perspective?

Over the last year and a half, I’ve had an opportunity to travel to many communities in the Northwest Territories, and we

will continually hear communities talking about working towards developing interagency committees. I think there’s significant value in interagency committees. I have had an opportunity to talk to CEOs, public administrators and board chairs, and there’s support for participating in interagency communities throughout the Northwest Territories where they currently exist. We would certainly be willing to participate in…[Microphone turned off]…as they begin or start up. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I allude in my statement to the fact that we cannot have resources on the ground everywhere all the time to respond to some of the needs of people who have either had treatment or are waiting to go to treatment that are back in our communities and needing some kind of support.

I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services if any consideration or research has ever gone into the idea of supporting or funding local groups. That could be people who are in recovery, people who have had experience and could be trained in some fashion but would be there to support people in the community that are struggling with mental illness. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.

There’s already a number of community-based organizations that do provide different types or different levels of support. They may not be in every community. In Yellowknife, by way of example, there is the Tree of Peace that does provide some of those services.

We offer, throughout the Northwest Territories, two deliveries in every region. The Mental Health First Aid program, which is actually a wonderful program and I encourage… Actually, I’d like to challenge all the MLAs to actually take the Mental Health First Aid. I’d also like to challenge the MLAs to have their CAs take Mental Health First Aid, because it’s a program that helps individuals become aware and conscious of mental health issues that people have and helps direct them to where they can get resources. So I would encourage all your residents to take the Mental Health First Aid so that we could all be participants in finding solutions in helping people in need. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would love to take Mental Health First Aid. I don’t know exactly how I would access that or what I could do. But as an

MLA, you have to understand that we get called to the homes by parents who are going out of their minds, worried about their children because they don’t know what they’re going to do next. You can take them to the hospital, but we cannot admit and treat except for only the really critical cases. So it is hard to know, as a parent, as a friend, as a community member, as an MLA, how to respond to some of these really stressful situations, because it does involve entire families and I would say particularly parents when they’re worried about their children.

Tell me how we can access the Mental Health First Aid that the Minister is talking about, because I’ll be the first one to sign up. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I’m glad the Member is taking the challenge. I too will be taking Mental Health First Aid training.

The authorities have enough money to do two deliveries of Mental Health First Aid training in each of the regions every year. I will commit to getting the Member as well as all of the Members a complete list of where the Mental Health First Aid training will be, and I’ll let them know when Mental Health First Aid training is going to occur in their communities so that they can participate.

I would also encourage them, as I did previously, to please get their CAs to take it, because I know their CAs often have to deal with a lot of issues coming from constituents. But, please, advertise it in your newsletters. Let’s get the information out there so people can have the tools and the resources they need in order to help support individuals in their communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Mental Health First Aid became as prevalent as having a First Aid certificate? I mean, you can hardly work anywhere or do anything without a First Aid course and certification.

The other day in the House, also, I asked the Minister that seeing that we cannot be, as a health service, everywhere all the time in every community, I had asked the Minister again about this idea of hooking patients or clients up with counsellors remotely through telehealth or through telephone counselling, telephone support. I’d like to ask the Minister, what is currently in place and where could that go?

Actually, the Member for Yellowknife Centre answered that question earlier. We do have a 1-800 Helpline that is available 24/7 for individuals who need to talk to somebody if they’re experiencing some level of crisis. We also have the Dalhousie psychiatry program here in the Northwest Territories. It does take a referral to get to that program, but individuals can access that as a way and means of getting support they need when they may not be able to

get an in-person visit. We do have community counsellors, as well, through most of the communities, and I do encourage people to follow up with community counsellors when they get the opportunity.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m glad that the Minister reminded me about community counselling, because as my colleague Mr. Bouchard mentioned, yes, we do have these services in the community, but we’ve recently heard that in Hay River right now that if you need counselling you are going to be on a three- or four-month waiting list, and that isn’t really good when it comes to issues of needing counselling for anything to do with mental illness.

I’d like to ask the Minister, is there any plan by his department to enhance those services in the communities so that we do not end up with a backlog of people waiting for services?

There is no plan in the budget that is before the committee today to increase the number of community counsellors in the communities. There are wait times. I will acknowledge that there are wait times throughout the Northwest Territories, but I think it’s important to note that these are mostly wait times for non-urgent clients. Clients with urgent needs are seen within 24 hours. Urgent issues, issues of extreme risk or importance can be dealt with immediately, within 24 hours.