I’m not aware of the overload in Tsiigehtchic but I’ll certainly take that under consideration, sorry, in McPherson, and I’ll certainly have a conversation with the public administrator of the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority to see if we can get that figured out.

The last thing I wanted to speak about is under the programs for residential care, specifically under the adults, because you know a number of our elders have to go to Inuvik for long-term care. Just recently one of our elders from one of the communities had to move to Inuvik because of illness and hasn’t been given much time actually. The sad thing about it is we’re actually billing this elder every month. You know, that person is really frustrated at the moment with not only having to deal with his illness but also being charged up to $800 a month to be staying at the long-term care.

The Member has recently brought that to my attention and we’re working with the Beaufort-Delta to figure out what’s going on with the details of the situation and we will be able to respond back to the Member shortly.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Next on my list I have Mr. Dolynny. Sorry, Ms. Bisaro.

Mr. Chair, if you want to go to somebody else first, that’s fine.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. I’ll go to Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. I have two questions and both of them, really, come under the category of grants and contributions, especially contributions. The next page obviously breaks down that contribution in terms of the different types of funds and programs.

One of particular interest to me is the mental health and addictions, which is at $1 million, and the unaligned healing, which is a $225,000. Sorry, mental health and addictions at $625,000 and unaligned healing at $1 million. Given the nature of the day when the majority of Members here spent a large part of our day talking about the importance of mental health and addictions, especially the mental health component, I find it odd that we actually are spending less money this year than last year. It’s not a lot less, but it’s about $150,000 less.

Can the Minister give us a rationale? Given what we’ve spoken to today, given the attitude of wanting to make change and do better and advance the agenda of mental health in a stigma-free Canada and a stigma-free North, you would think they’d be putting a bit more money, not taking away. What is the rationale for less investment this year? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, just to be clear, these are grants and contributions. There are dollars that are flowing out to other organizations such as the authorities but as well as other organizations for specific programming. This is in no way, shape or form indicative of the entire budget being spent on mental health and addictions by the Department of Health and Social Services. I believe that number is closer to $15.7 million. For some specifics I will go to the deputy minister.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Deputy Minister DeLancey.

Thank you, deputy minister. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do appreciate the rationale. Just from an optics point of view you can imagine the dismay, as a committee member who fights very hard, tooth and claw, for every dollar. When I see a number regress, we need to find clarification.

In that same breath, my question is if this is indeed monies that were put aside for outside contributions in the realm of mental health and addictions. We know that Nats’ejee K’eh in its operating years was receiving about $2 million a year for mental health and addictions programs. If I look at the combined number here for outside investment and funding, that number is now only about $1.6 million.

Can the Minister or department indicate, is my rationale sound? Did we spend $2 million before on mental health and addictions outside for program delivery and now we’re only spending $1.6 million combined? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Some of those numbers that the Member is pulling together aren’t exactly right, but the Member is correct in the fact that there was a $2 million budget for Nats’ejee K’eh. We’re using that budget to cover the individuals that are going in our contracts with the four southern facilities. We figure it’ll take about a year to figure out what that price should balance out to. We figure the price for delivery in the southern facilities is about $1.2 million, which leaves about $800,000. We were planning to utilize those dollars for the mobile treatment program and we’ve been close and then it’s been stalled and then we’ve been close and then it’s been stalled and it’s been close and it’s been stalled on the mobile treatment program and we’re continuing to try to move forward on that, but the other part of that $2 million was intended to be going towards the mobile treatments.

So, if I’m following the money correctly and if I’ve heard correctly here today, about $800,000 has been put aside for mobile treatment, or at least the establishment of mobile treatment. Can the Minister indicate where that $800,000 is in this new budget structure?

On Page 197, under community mental health and addictions there’s a budget line of $15.24 million. That’s where those dollars are.

I think this also lends to the overall question that I think myself as a Member has in terms of how this new layout looks and, again, the details behind this layout. I’m going to ask, at a point in time, if the Minister would commit to giving us more of a breakdown so we can actually understand some of these large $60 million, $15 million, what they are all

encompassing. Again, because of the fairly large change in format here, would the Minister commit to providing that breakdown for committee once the main estimates are completed?

I do acknowledge this is certainly more complex than it was before. This offers way more detail than the budget did in previous years. When we indicated to committee that we were going to be moving to a system that actually provided some consistency between the authorities and the department and was consistent with the CIHI definitions of different program areas, we did offer a briefing. We ran out of time. We’d be happy to come back and give committee a briefing on these new categories and how they relate. There is some certain crossover. Some of the money will fall into multiple areas for what appears to be a program area, depending on the definition of how those dollars are going to be spent.

I acknowledge it is far more complex. I will admit it took me probably three, four, almost five times reading through this with people who are smarter than I am around finances before I even started figuring it out. I acknowledge that this is difficult, but this is going to be better in the long run. I do apologize for the frustration in working through this new format.

I do appreciate where the Minister is coming from. If he’s frustrated, I can tell you that you times that by 10 and I think you’ll see where Members are today here. We applaud the work in trying to make things more detailed and more simplistic to match parameters, but given the format of today, it is posed to be very problematic.

Last question. Last year the subject of oral health became of great debate and it was around the sunset of a federal funding initiative on children’s oral health care to the tune of $468,000. At that time, committee felt very strongly that oral health was an initiative that should not fall off the table and that we recommended to have that amount reinstated into the budget. Sadly, as we all know, Cabinet declined that request and oral health, which was funded federally, did not receive the proper funding. To the question, how are we dealing with oral health? Where does it fall in the program delivery that we have before us and what’s the funding that we have set aside for children’s oral health care?

We are pleased to announce that we have actually been approved to receive $4.5 million in federal funding under the Territorial Health Investment Fund for the development and initiation of an NWT oral health strategy. Based on the March 2014 report Brushing Up On Oral Health, we have developed an ambitious action plan for the development of an evidence-based strategy to improve the oral health status of NWT residents, particularly with a focus

on our children. That number can actually be found on page 221 of this document, and it’s under the title work performed on behalf of others, and it shows $4.333 million under Territorial Health Investment Fund. It’s the third from the bottom.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Next on my list I have Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess this is a big piece of the Health and Social Services in terms of programs and services that we provide to residents and also supporting our not-for-profit organizations. I guess the first question that I do have is about a year ago, yes, just over a year ago we tabled the Early Childhood Development Action Plan in the House here, and it was a combination between Education, Culture and Employment and Health and Social Services. When you look at the action items, the Department of Health and Social Services was accountable for 14 of those action items. With a year into this action plan, I see that in here we’ve got some things like Healthy Family Program, Early Childhood Development Breastfeeding Program. He doesn’t have to get into detail, but would the Minister commit to provide committee with an update on where they are in this action?

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Abernethy.