Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The one thing I can convey to the Member is that even though we are looking at doing this as a budget reduction for the next fiscal year, this year coming up that we will continue to have the winter ferry operation for this fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that wasn't so hard there, Minister.On behalf of my constituents I'd like to thank the department for following through on keeping the operations ongoing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, following on from my Member's statement, I'd like to talk a little bit more about housing availability, public housing availability, with some questions for the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation. The length of the waiting list for public housing, both within Yellowknife and across the Territory as a whole, has been constant for years, and I'm wondering if the Minister could tell us what she can do to make more public housing units available, especially to the single parents on the waiting list? Thank you.

Masi. Minister of NWT Housing Corporation.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to try to address that as concisely as I can although it's quite a loaded question. There is a huge waiting list for people for housing within the Northwest Territories, it's like 600 families at a minimum at this point, so it is a substantial number of people and it is a high priority for the Government of the Northwest Territories.

What we're doing about it is federally we're meeting with the federal minister. There is actually going to be an FPT meeting at the end of this month. We have been advocating strongly. All three territories have advocated strongly. We've convinced them that when they do their national housing strategy that there has to be a northern component. So our advocacy, our lobbying for the federal government is working in that they are considering that the North is special and they will be actually having a northern component to that strategy. So that's important.

The other thing that we're doing is we have the survey that's going out here at the end of this month. When I've travelled to the communities, as our Premier has talked about with his talking about transparency and being available to residents, the biggest thing I've heard from community members is that the GNWT needs to listen to them. They need to listen to the communities. They all are different, they all have their own opinions, and I have committed to doing that.There's quite a few policies and programs that I personally would like to take on and change immediately within the Housing Corporation, but I have made a commitment to the public of the Northwest Territories in saying that I will listen to them and I will take their words. So even though it's really difficult, because I do want change myself, I am honouring my commitment and waiting until the survey results come in. At that point, we will be looking at every single policy, every single program, to see if we can structure them better to accommodate people.

In the community specifically of Yellowknife, though, I do want to say that there is market housing available. So sometimes people often think that public housing is the only answer, but it's not. People within Yellowknife market communities actually have more of a luxury than people in the communities in that they can go rent a place; they can qualify for income support if they can't afford it, and also the NWT Housing Corporation has a program called a Transitional Rent Supplement Program that will help people for two years if they need additional support to pay their rent. So there is actually more options within Yellowknife than there is in the smaller communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the Minister for her answer and for her efforts to address this issue. I appreciate that it is an enormous one. Affordability is a key problem in Yellowknife. I appreciate that the government will provide help to people on income assistance and through the Transitional Rent Supplement Program, but still affordability for low- income people is an issue. I want to just ask about the CMHC, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, funding. I know that that organization funds operations and maintenance of public housing stock and that that number has been in decline since 2003. Is the fact that this operations and maintenance money is going down one of the reasons the government can't build more units?

For quite a few Legislative Assemblies actually there has been a stall on building new units, public housing units. I have not personally spoken to those Ministers so I cannot actually say what their reasoning was for that. My intuition, my gut is telling me, though, that they did put a hold on it because of the declining funding in the operating and maintenance for the CMHC which will dissolve in 2038. So as part of that, I am looking at strategies to address that so that we can actually increase our public housing stock. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this point I would say that that would not be a very good recommendation; my concern would be is that we set people up. If we were to put them in temporary residences and rent places, people then get accustomed. This is their home, they get very comfortable, and then when their surplus for the local housing organization runs out, then they're kicked out in the street. So I don't think that is a very viable solution.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I realize that this would not be sustainable, but it might supply a short-term additional boost in housing. I mean, people do move out of public housing. So those in temporary units could be moved on to more permanent units. It just seems to me that using those surpluses to create housing would be the best use of that money. So can the Minister commit to looking again at using the surplus for creating additional short-term housing? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The direction that we have given the local housing organizations is that they are to come to us with their suggestions on how they are going to deal with the surpluses. So, again, out of respect for the process that we've already put it on the table and asked them to present to us, then I think at this point it would be inappropriate for me to go back on them and demand what we want to see. So I would be more than eager to see what they are going to present to us. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to talk about the long-term care in Hay River. I would like to ask the Minister if there are protocols in place when there is an incident, a protocol in place that staff have to follow?

Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated previously, when an incident does occur within any of our long-term care facilities, the immediate measures are taken to ensure the residents and staff are safe, such as separating the residents and removing other residents and staff from the area where the incident might be taking place, and doing what we can with the residents themselves to make sure that the altercation is ended as quickly as possible.

I would like to ask the Minister if staff are trained to deal with reports. When there is an incident in a long-term care facility, what type of training do staff have in order to deal with it to ensure that they are dealing with the incident appropriately?

The training varies across the Northwest Territories depending on the type of training or support that individual authorities pre-transformation had established. We are looking to try to obviously standardize some training to make sure that all long-term care facilities have training that is both adequate, timely, and effective. As an example, there is a three-day training that has been available in Fort Smith called P.I.E.C.E.S. P.I.E.C.E.S is an approach to a multidisciplinary team to understand enhanced care for individuals with physical and/or cognitive mental health issues that have behaviour changes, and how they can work together with the clients, with the facility, work together with their team members to ensure that, as they change, as they age, that the staff are on top of it and aware of incidents that may come up. So there is training that we're trying to standardize, trying to make sure that all of our staff have consistent training across the system.

In the long-term care here in Yellowknife, there are two separate areas for individuals that have dementia and others that do not. I would like to ask the Minister if there is such a separation in Woodland Manor, where people with dementia are separated from people that do not have dementia?

We only have only one dementia facility in the Northwest Territories, and that is the facility in Yellowknife. Individuals with dementia have a higher need and a higher requirement for support than individuals in long-term care who may have early-onset Alzheimer's or some level of minor dementia but not extreme dementia. Individuals with dementia, we try to get into the long-term or the dementia facility here in Yellowknife, but as the Member knows, as all Members know, we have a shortage of beds in the Northwest Territories. We are trying to come up with a plan to increase the number of beds across the Northwest Territories for long-term care, including addressing some of the shortages we're going to experience in dementia care or beds moving forward.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister if there is a way that individuals with dementia are separated from people without dementia? In incidents such as this, individuals with dementia are mixed in with individuals that do not have dementia. I would like to ask the Minister, if physically they cannot be separated, then is there some sort of plan or protocol, or whatever we wish to call it, in place that keeps people with dementia away from individuals that do not have dementia?

Individuals within our long-term care facilities have a wide range of different challenges. As I indicated previously, we do an assessment of each individual to identify their needs and their specific needs and develop personal care plans based on the individual's needs. Having said that, in our new facilities we have a lot more structures built into the buildings themselves so that we can isolate different areas and keep individuals, whether they have dementia or not, separated from each other when there are issues, when there is a risk of violence. So our new facilities do have the ability to do exactly what the Member is discussing. As a note, we are currently moving forward with the construction of an expansion to Woodland Manor which will be a current and modern facility, with all the structures in place that exist within all of our current modern long-term care facilities. So that new expansion will have the ability to do exactly what the Member is discussing, as does our new facility in Behchoko, as does our new facility in Norman Wells, and more modern facilities such as the dementia centres that have been built over the years. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister of Health and Social Services indicate if this government is prepared to implement harm reduction programs such as managed alcohol programs? Has this issue been studied and would the department be prepared to implement them?