Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I'll use Hay River as an example. I have had an opportunity to visit the Hay River Family Violence Shelter and talk to the staff and understand their concerns. The Department of Health and Social Services and the Housing Corporations are in discussions with them to explore all opportunities for them to find a new location. I can't tell you what that's going to look like across the Northwest Territories because it would be different pretty much in every location depending on what assets are available, what assets aren't available, but we do know that we need to work with them and we are working with them to explore options. Right now, we don’t have a solution for you, but we are working with them.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Any further questions, Mr. Simpson?

Thank you to the Minister. No further questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Next we have Ms. Green.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I noticed that the adult support services line which includes the Office of the Public Guardian is losing a small amount of money this year and it seemed like a good time to ask the Minister about the progress of his review of the Public Guardian's office which was due by the end of the calendar year; that was the deadline that he gave us. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there is no real increase or decrease here; we're pretty much status quo. I think it's $2,000 down. You will notice that it's down from the 2015-16 actuals when it was $1,354,000. Those are actuals and we did have a salary overspend in those years that had to be accounted for; but the budget has been pretty much consistent for a number of years.

The operational review that the Member is talking about was conducted by some external consultants and a final report was provided to the department in December 2016. The recommendations for improvement to business practices and administrative procedures have been accepted and we are acting upon those. There were a number of other recommendations that may have some financial or legislative implications, and they are being reviewed by the department and figuring out how we can move forward on those.

We're hoping to post an executive summary of the report online shortly, but we wanted to be able to do that with some of our analysis of those recommendations as well, and I'll certainly be sharing that with committee before we go online. Thank you. Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Ms. Green.

Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I don’t have that number at my fingertips, but I will commit to getting that to committee.

Thank you, Minister. Ms. Green.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. These may also be questions that the Minister needs some additional time with. I'd like to know the number of assessors who are dealing with that backlog of referrals and also the number of staff who are dealing with what I'm going to guess is an increased caseload based on looking at those referrals, so could he please commit to giving us a rundown of how those referrals are being dealt with, by whom, and what the staff capacity is there? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I believe we talked about this a number of months ago. We have added a number of assessors, but I will get the exact number for the Member and I will also provide an outline of the caseload and where we are to date. As far as the report, we got the report. We've been doing our analysis and my intention was always to get it to committee as soon as we can do that analysis. We're hoping to have that done soon so that we can share with committee and post online. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Ms. Green.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So in the event that, in order to address this backlog of referrals, there's a need for additional resources either in the form of additional assessors and/or additional staff to review the caseload, where will those resources come from? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There are resources in this area already. What we need to do is make sure that we're utilizing those resources to maximum benefit. Certainly as we move forward and we look at these recommendations and we try to address the backlog, we'll get a better sense of what the continual demand will be and we'll certainly be in a position to have some discussions based on information, probably during the next business planning cycle. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Ms. Green.

Mr. Chair, the next business plan cycle is approximately nine months away, so I'm wondering if in the interim there is still this backlog, which the Minister referred to in June of last year as unacceptable in all ways, I'm looking for some assurance that there are the resources in place now to deal with this backlog. We're talking about services to very vulnerable people. That is the basis of a Public Guardian application. It's not for the likes of you and me. So I'd like to think that people are not continuing to wait months and months for service in this area. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate the Member's position. I will say that we have taken her position a number of months ago when this first came up, we have made changes within, we have got the report done, but waiting for the report we didn't stop and do no work. We did increase the number of assessors and we have moved forward to increase the number of assessments. We have been able to fund from within to this point, which we're prepared to keep doing as we move forward to get rid of some of the backlog.

What I'm indicating to the Member, and I hope I'm clear, is that as we've done this work we've been able to get to a point where we can start quantifying what we think future demand will be, and that's what we'll need to discuss the next business planning cycle. What we've done and what we'll do till then is cover from within in order to meet the needs. Once we get the numbers stabilized so we have a general sense of what's coming in without increased backlog, we'll have far better information to make some decisions on what we will need moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair.