Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Health Minister just talked about what they had to do to roll out the homecare money. It doesn't seem that complicated if you look at the number of homecare workers in the different regions. Can't you throw a couple of hundred thousand or a few hundred thousand to Hay River, and they can hire a couple of homecare workers and continue doing what they are doing? It doesn't seem like there needs to be a plan necessarily. As for a study, they know how many homecare workers are in the region. We can see which regions are understaffed. Is that a possibility? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you Mr. Speaker. I wish it was that simple. The bottom line is there is no consistent application of home support workers across the Northwest Territories. We know what numbers exist today, but there has been no standard set as to what every community should have. That is the work we are doing today. Once we know what a standard is, or a baseline is, then we can fix that by putting physicians in.

As I said in Committee of the Whole, it is not just home support care workers, Mr. Chair. We are looking at a different array of programs, family supports, that could be money that we could float to families to help them support. There are community supports we could put in, which require a new design of position, designing a new position, writing job descriptions, getting those evaluated, and putting them in place.

I am confident that we can move forward and start closing these gaps with these dollars, but it is not something we can do tomorrow. When the continuing care plan is done, I will meet with committee and we can work together to set our priorities for the remainder of this fiscal year and moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have a general idea of how many homecare workers are in each region. What is the issue with seeing that this region has significantly less per capita than other regions and putting the money in that region and putting out two jobs, let's say, with the job descriptions that have already been created, and hiring two homecare workers? What is wrong with that plan? Is it too simple? Is it not related to an action plan or a framework? What is the problem here?

As we look forward and we determine what the baseline is, what if Hay River is the baseline? What if that is the appropriate number of physicians? We don't have that answer. Until we have that answer, we don't know that putting physicians in one community over another is actually going to help us meet our needs.

Also, Mr. Speaker, the current plan is about home support workers. That is the way we have provided those services. Maybe it is not. Maybe we should have more homecare nurses. Maybe we should have community support workers. Maybe we should have family support workers. These are questions we don't have answered. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, we have talked about this, it is like banging your head on a wall. It hurts after a while. It is time to do things right. It is time to do things better. That is what we are prepared to do.

If Hay River is the baseline, I think you are going to have to fire a bunch of home support workers in the other regions. I am pretty sure that we are understaffed. I will just leave it at this. I know the answer that I am going to get. Will the Minister commit to adding a couple of more home support workers in Hay River with this money?

Moving forward, I commit to providing and ensuring that all communities in the Northwest Territories have adequate homecare supports based on a formula, based on numbers that actually make sense.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question, maybe only one question, for the Minister of Health and Social Services in line with what we are talking about in homecare. I would like to ask the Minister if the Minister knows how many people receive a seniors' fuel subsidy across the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have that number in front of me. Thank you.

The Minister talks about baseline data. I think that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment has done a lot of baseline data in order to determine who is eligible for senior's fuel. Those are homeowners who are seniors who are under a certain income. I think that would be a quick way to determine the baseline. I would like to ask the Minister if the Minister is prepared to work with the Minister of Education to get that information as a start to developing a baseline of the communities?

Absolutely. We are working closely with our partner departments, both housing and education. There is a lot of data out there. It is a matter of compiling it and putting it together in a useful format so that when we come to committee and say, "this is the baseline," we can defend it and understand it. If it needs to be changed, we are happy to do so. We do need to do the work so that we can make informed, evidence-based decisions in this Assembly.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister of Education some questions about the reinstatement of funding for the Teacher Education Program and social work program through Aurora College. I am just trying to figure out how this is actually going to work. Are these complete and total reinstatements of the funding for those programs? I will start with that one, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the funding was always going to be there as we were looking at phasing out the programs over the next two fiscal years, and three fiscal years for the TEP program. That is going to obviously be put on hold until we sit down with committee as well as sit down with our stakeholders at Aurora College to look, as we move forward, at refocusing Aurora College and making sure that they are effective and efficient and meeting the labour market demands as well as the students' needs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you to the Minister for that response. We won't actually see a change in the line items in the main estimates in terms of the contribution to be made to Aurora College. Is that what I am hearing?

It will be looked at during the supplementaries that we are going to be bringing in later. That is how it is going to be effected.

Thanks to the Minister for that. Come September, when students come back for their program, there will be a whole cohort missing of new students in these two programs. All the teachers will be there ready to go, but they won't have any students. Is that what I am hearing? Why would we reinstate all the funding for the program if we are not taking in new students? Can the Minister explain this?

As I have mentioned before, the staff complement is going to be still in place to support the students that are currently in the program. We want to continue to support these students so that they can complete their studies and we can get them graduated as well as become part of teaching in small communities as well as getting our social workers out and working for government as well. We are going to continue to support the students that are currently in the program right now.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. We all want the students who are in the program to be supported. There is going to be a lot less work to do because we are not taking in a new cohort. Is this really a prelude to cutting the programs completely? I just don't understand why we would make this reinstatement and how it is any different than what the Minister had already committed to do. Can the Minister provide some clarification of what is going to happen with the teachers for the program? There are going to be fewer students for them to be working with because we are not taking them in. What will those teachers be doing? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.