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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are still waiting a formal policy change in the service delivery model. In the meantime, I have a practical suggestion. The current arrangement has a nurse visiting Tsiigehtchic one day a week for most of the year.

Will the Minister commit to funding a nurse to spend two days a week in Tsiigehtchic instead of just one, as most of that is due to travel? Thank you.

In Tsiigehtchic, a community of 128 people, we do have a public health nurse going in there one day a week. I hear the Member; we will certainly take that under consideration, but we also have two times a year where there is a public health nurse in the community for six weeks at a time. There is some room for discussion and I would be happy to have that conversation with the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Public Works and Services. Today I am following up on my Member’s statement.

The Energy Charrette held three months ago released its report a month and a half ago. One of its key findings was the urgent need for an energy efficiency act for the Northwest Territories. Getting this act in place needs to be a priority for us.

Will the Minister please confirm to the House that such an act is indeed being worked on by his officials for adoption during the life of this Assembly? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister of Public Works, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The energy efficiency act was last amended in September of 2009. We were currently using it up until December 2014. There will be another review of the consolidated energy efficiency act.

Any time there are energy codes or anything, regulations in the act, then the Department of Public Works uses the current energy efficiency act. Thank you.

I didn’t hear that the Minister was going to put this act in place.

Again, the charrette was very clear in its view that the energy efficiency act would be a cornerstone towards a secure energy future, economic sustainability, environmental responsibility and, most importantly, reducing the cost of living. To now leave this important work for some review later on in the 18th Assembly would make a bad track

record even worse.

Will the Minister commit to bringing this act forward for adoption during the life of this Assembly?

Public Works and Services will be involved in organizing a construction workshop here in Yellowknife that’s an annual thing. That will be occurring sometime in April. What we will be doing as one of the topics will be discussing the energy efficiency act. Actually, sorry, I believe that’s in the middle of this month is when the date of that workshop will be occurring.

Thank you for that information from the Minister. Glad to hear that’s happening. That’s part of regular business. Unfortunately, we’ve had lots of meetings during the last six or eight years like this and the Association of Communities has raised the need for an energy efficiency act and standards.

Will the Minister, again, commit to bringing forward this legislation for adoption by the 17th Assembly?

Third time.

I’m not sure that the department would be in the position to complete a legislative proposal to look at the energy efficiency act for the Northwest Territories. Currently, we are using the energy efficiency act that is used across the country. We use the energy efficiency and national energy efficiency codes when we do our buildings and make sure that all of our buildings are under the National Energy Code. These are building that are designed that exceed most of the energy efficiency requirements across the entire country and within the Northwest Territories. I’m

assuming that Nunavut and the Yukon also have highly energy-efficient units, but we can compare well to any of the national standards. We do exceed the national standards in energy efficiency. But to actually commit to bringing a legislative proposal to the Assembly on the energy efficiency act would be something that I would need to discuss with the people that will be putting the legislative proposal forward, because I don’t know the timing on that. I would not be able to commit, but I will be prepared to have that discussion with the department as soon as I was able to do so.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister’s response is entirely unacceptable. This has been raised repeatedly, and now through our expensive Energy Charrette – yet another one – it has been raised as the answer to a lot of our issues and providing benefits including addressing the cost of living.

How often does this need to be done? Now we’re sloughing it off again. The Minister is giving responses like need to discuss, we’ll try and discuss, don’t know what the timing would be like.

For goodness sake, this is long overdue. Long overdue. Lots of other jurisdictions in Canada have done this. It has been raised repeatedly. It has been raised in a workshop that we funded to get this done.

That response is entirely unacceptable. I have no further questions.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We don’t actually have any programs at this time dedicated strictly or particularly to post-

traumatic stress disorder, but we do have psychiatric assessment and treatment that is available both on an in-patient and outpatient basis. So if an individual is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, they can access outpatient care or treatment through a referral from a nurse or a doctor or other professionals here in the Northwest Territories. So I would strongly encourage individuals who are going through this to get in touch with their medical practitioners. Thank you.

Thank you. In some cases just talking about mental illness is a tough thing to do for anybody, even if you are a doctor and understand the situation, to bring up the issues and the symptoms that you’re dealing with. Particularly in the North because we have such a small population there’s a good chance that if you end up in an event you might know the person and that can really cause really high stress and make you more vulnerable to PTSD.

I’d like to ask the Minister, other than what he’s said now, how are we getting that information out to these first respondents as well as to the doctors and nurses?

How are we getting the information that there are those resources that he mentioned available? Thank you.

We’re trying to do a number of things to increase awareness of mental health issues here in the Northwest Territories. We did release a magazine last year, which was Mind and Spirit, which encourages people to read, talk and understand mental health issues. One thing I’d like to encourage all Members to do, as well as all the Ministers and all residents of the Northwest Territories, is to take Mental Health First Aid. That creates an awareness in the individuals so they can recognize when people they know might be struggling.

At the same time, we do have community counseling programs that are available. This is free counseling available to individuals who are either suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or may know somebody that is and they can refer them to. A lot of these situations the Member is talking about actually occur while the individual happens to be on duty or at work. Many organizations do have employee and family assistance programs. I would encourage individuals to access their employee and family assistance programs to begin the process of healing.

I would also suggest that individuals should call the NWT Helpline, which may be another resource for individuals who may not be willing or prepared to talk to either a friend or somebody they know, but might be interested in getting some advice from somebody that’s a little bit more anonymous.

So there are a number of programs out there. We are constantly trying to encourage people to talk about mental health issues, to create awareness and lead people to the help they need. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last week I went to World Cancer Day, and talking to some of the individuals, they have a speaking forum, or a talking circle group here in Yellowknife, which is a great way to talk about it. So I was wondering if the Minister has any resources available that he can set up some type of forum for our first responders that want to get together and talk about these kinds of issues.

Are there any resources in the operations budget or any resources that he can think of that we can address this in a talking circle forum? Thank you.

Thank you. That’s certainly an interesting concept and certainly something that I will have the department look at. At this time I cannot say that there are actual funds available to do this exact thing, this exact roundtable of conversation, but it’s something that’s certainly interesting and I’ll have the department take a look at it. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We talked about the Mental Health Act and post-traumatic stress disorder. So I just want to ask the Minister – I know we’re going through a review of one of the bills – under one of the provisions in the Mental Health Act it talks about involuntary admission. Sometimes when a person who has mental illness doesn’t want to admit themselves, they have people they work with that care about them.

Are there any amendments being made that we can make right now to the Mental Health Act that can address these issues? Thank you.