Masi. Item 3, Members' statements. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Marci cho, Mr. Speaker.

[English translation not provided].

Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about the Department of Health and Social Services’ budget, just briefly. I have indicated a couple of times with this 18thAssembly that we have a huge budget-sucking issue with alcohol and drugs. I have talked about this, about the amount that alcohol and drugs is costing every person in the NWT, yet, Mr. Speaker, the budget for community mental health and addictions has stayed the same as last year. The budget for Health Promotion and Community Wellness has also seen no increase.

Mr. Speaker, I know how much alcohol and drugs and mental health issues have cost our communities. Mr. Speaker, without alcohol, our correction facilities potentially could be only 10 to 20 per cent full. That, of course, is that all the people that committed crimes under the influence of alcohol did not commit those crimes.

Why, Mr. Speaker, would this department not see that to help the people get off alcohol and drugs would be a huge savings to the government by:

1. not having inmates in corrections at over $300 per day per person to the government;

2. not having alcohol abuse-related hospital stays at thousands of dollars per day;

3. having children attend school every day, giving them a better chance of success and growing up to be tax-paying people with their children in school.

Mr. Speaker, these are just a few of the reasons why the Department of Health and Social Services must begin to put more money into the area of alcohol and drugs. Thank you very much.

Masi. Item 3, Members' statements. Item 4, reports of standing and special committees. Item 5, returns to oral questions. Item 6, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Colleagues, I would like to draw your attention to the public in the gallery today. We have a group of students who are here with us, attending Corpus Christi College in Vancouver. I'd like to welcome them to our Assembly. Masi.

Item 6, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Item 7, acknowledgements. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to acknowledge Yellowknife North constituents recognized last week by the NWT Disabilities Council for increasing accessibility for disabled people: the Minister responsible for Persons with Disabilities Award to Mr. Anthony Whitford, the Disabilities Council Award to Ms. Jeannie Rocher, and the Council of Canadians with Disabilities Award to Best Buddies of Ecole St. Patrick High School. Colleagues, please join me in congratulating these winners. Thank you.

Acknowledgements. Item 8, oral questions. Member for Nunakput.

Quyanainni, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier I spoke about distance learning, and my questions are for the Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment. Mr. Speaker, my first question is: when will the department complete an evaluation of the distance learning pilot project? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I believe that an accountability plan has been in place for the e-learning, the distance learning pilot, since 2014. The pilot has run for four semesters currently, and we're continually getting feedback from all participants as well as instructors that are teaching the class. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, my second question is: will the distance education program be expanded to additional communities in the NWT?

Currently, we have six communities that we're offering the program to. The department is reaching out to all regions to seek interest from some of the communities that don't offer similar secondary programming. In our next academic year we will be adding two more communities, moving forward. Hopefully as we see more success, we'll see more communities added, especially the rural and remote communities that currently don't provide some of the distance learning classes.

Mr. Speaker, my final question: is the department gathering the feedback from students and teachers on an ongoing basis to improve the distance learning program?

Yes, Mr. Speaker. Earlier, I said that we continuously are getting feedback from our participants as well as our teachers. It does help us. It's very critical that we get that feedback so we can make adjustments to the program to make it a lot better, a little bit more efficient.

We've learned a lot of things already. One thing that we've seen as a strong success is the in-school monitor. We've also learned how the courses are being taught, which ones are being more effective. But one great success out of this program is the relationship-building between communities, participants that are in different communities. One of the great things that this program does is they bring them together for one time out of the year. I believe we had our participants from Resolution and Liard go up to Inuvik and meet with the teachers that they've only seen through video conferencing. So we're continually getting feedback and hope to expand the program and build on its success moving forward.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, Mr. Speaker, I spoke about medical travel and some of the challenges we're facing. For the record, I know the staff are doing a great job in implementing the policies the department has in regards to medical travel. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister of Health and Social Services please tell the House when the last time the department reviewed the medical travel policy and who was involved? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the medical travel policy was revised on April 1, 2015 to remove some program-level details. This detail was moved into three ministerial policies, one on eligibility criteria, one on escort criteria, as well as one on benefits. A ministerial policy on appeal process was also created at that time, which is a new feature within medical travel.

In order to ensure that the ministerial policies reflect the needs of residents of the Northwest Territories, a review of the policies is ongoing. To assist with this review, a consultant, DPRA, was contracted by the department to hold public engagement sessions across the Northwest Territories from December 2014 to March 2015. A number of different stakeholders were consulted as part of this review, including residents and patients in communities of varying sizes across the Northwest Territories, Aboriginal governments and organizations, NGOs like the NWT Seniors' Society and the Canadian Cancer Society.

A report was prepared as a result of this engagement, called "Patient Escort Supports: A Report on What We Heard," which was made publicly available. One of the key recommendations that came out of this public dialogue was the creation of a medical travel navigation booklet for patients and escorts, which we hope to release soon. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the Minister for his answer. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell us if medical travel staff get together yearly to discuss their issues and share their success stories to help improve this service?

I don't believe that we actually have a formal process whereby they get together on an annual basis, but we did bring some staff in, and we do engage with our staff to get their feedback on different aspects of medical travel. The staff across the Northwest Territories actually had a lot of input in what this handbook that we're going to release shortly is going to look like. Medical travel staff work in collaboration and on an ongoing basis to improve medical travel here, in the Northwest Territories.

I thank the Minister for his answer. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell the House if each regional office has a 1-800 number that the patients can call if they need immediate assistance? And, if we do not, why not?

Mr. Speaker, we don't have a 1-800 number for every region, but we do have numbers available for our medical travel staff in all of the regions, and that information is going to be provided to our residents who are travelling on medical travel as part of this new booklet that's going to be provided. It's going to show them the numbers they can call, who they can call, in particular, the medical travel staff in the regions.

It's also going to include the number for our system navigator, which is, actually, a 1-800 number, should they not be able to get in touch with their local medical travel staff, the staff they've been working on to help coordinate their travel.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Minister for his answer. The Minister spoke about this policy was developed and reviewed ongoing. Could the Minister actually look at getting the staff together, the medical travel staff together, so that they can actually share their success and challenges so that they can work together and enhance what they have. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the staff are already being engaged on this particular project. We're doing, as I indicated, different pillars. We're looking at the escorts. We're looking at the costing and funding. We're looking at a number of different things. We are bringing staff in. It's not always the same staff. We can't always bring in all the staff. But we certainly do our best to engage different staff at different times to make sure that we're getting a really well-rounded opinion and input as we move forward.

I commit to continuing to engage staff as we move forward, and I mean delivery staff, not departmental staff but delivery staff, as we move forward on all the pillars of medical travel and modernization.