Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize my niece, Neve Short. She is visiting us here today from the William McDonald School. [English translation not provided.] Merci, Monsieur le President.

Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Monsieur le President. [English translation not provided.] I would like to welcome the students from William McDonald school -- it's in my riding of Frame Lake -- and their exchange students from Quebec. Merci, Monsieur le President.

Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to recognize the students from my past school, Weledeh School, that is located in the riding of Yellowknife North, and welcome all the other students that are here today. Thank you for coming.

Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member for Yellowknife Centre.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to introduce Renald Chiasson. He's a constituent of Yellowknife Centre, and he's been serving us as a Page for the last few weeks. I'd like to thank him for being here and to thank all the pages for their work. Mahsi.

Masi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Item 6, acknowledgements. Item 7, oral questions. Member for Nunakput.

Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are going to be working over the next couple of months to create a number of options that we can go out and pilot with, either community caregiver or family support giver at a community level. We are hoping to have the pilots designed, at least for initial go-around, later in 2018. We are hoping to go out and start doing some piloting in 2018. I am happy to have conversations with the MLAs across the way, to help us set some priorities for where we might want to pilot some of these options. We know we want to pilot them in a variety of different communities: small communities, large communities, medium communities. So we are hoping to start that in the fall of 2018.

It's good to see that programs like this are starting to roll out across the territory. Mr. Speaker, in the interim and in the future, to provide a strong professional foundation to home and community care, what other actions will the Minister take to improve homecare, especially in our smallest and most remote communities? What are the options there?

Mr. Speaker, there's a number of things that are going on. In the last budget cycle, we had some additional dollars approved to create some more homecare positions across the Northwest Territories. Eleven positions were created, and a number of them were in small communities throughout the Northwest Territories. Most of them are filled. There are still a couple that we are out recruiting for.

At the same time, I committed to doing a homecare review of the entire Northwest Territories to assess the level of care that is provided in all communities, all regions, all areas of the Northwest Territories. The preliminary work has been done on that. We are developing the plan to move forward on that. We are hoping to get that work done during this upcoming fiscal year so that we can determine whether or not we are adequately resourced for homecare, home support workers across the territories.

In the meantime, we have a number of partners that we are working with, and work being done in the departments and the authorities, to support things like Elders in Motion, to provide palliative care. There are footcare options available in different communities throughout the Northwest Territories, through partners; chronic disease prevention and management. We've got vision screening that's done throughout the Northwest Territories. There are all sorts of types of things we are doing.

I think there are great partners out there, the NWT Seniors' Society and others, as well as different community-based organizations. We are trying to work together as best we can to make sure those supports are available.

It looks like it's a good opportunity to work with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, as well as the GSOs in Nunakput. Mr. Speaker, my final question to the Minister is: without local homecare services, what options are open to communities like Sachs Harbour?

Mr. Speaker, as I said, we are doing that homecare review to help us assess where we need to enhance some of our supports. In the meantime, for communities like Sachs Harbour where there is not a home support worker, our community health nurses are the ones who can actually provide some of the homecare services, recognizing that it's a small community. That has been able to work over the last number of years, but it is going to be included in that homecare review so that we can determine adequate resources for homecare throughout the Northwest Territories.

Masi. Oral questions, Member for Nunakput.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the response from the Minister, and it's good to see the healthcare system working for elders. Mr. Speaker, I am just wondering if it's in the near future that the Minister will reinstate the position in Sachs Harbour for a homecare worker? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I can't say for sure. We really need to get that work done, the homecare assessment, so that we can make some determination across the entire Northwest Territories where we need some additional resources or where we can better utilize the resources we have, to make sure that our residents get the best care that they deserve in all communities and regions of the Northwest Territories. As we get that information, I am absolutely going to work with Members and share it with Members. Thank you.

Masi. Oral answer. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement, I talked about the importance of engaging young people in future decisions and current decisions, as well. So I'd like to ask the Minister responsible for Youth how this government goes about engaging youth in the Northwest Territories when they are making decisions around government spending, legislation, and other major policy decisions? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister responsible for Youth.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think it's a responsibility for all forms of government, whether it's the GNWT or even our Indigenous governments that we partner with, to ensure that the youth have a voice. I am a strong supporter of this.

In fact, in our last government, the Member and Members would be glad to hear that, when we were developing our Safe and Caring School legislation in the Northwest Territories, we did engage with youth across the Northwest Territories. We had face-to-face meetings with them in their schools and in their classrooms and got feedback on that legislation. It was great to have that interaction.

I know this Legislative Assembly, as well, does some really great programs. We do, on an annual basis, have Youth Parliament, where every one of our communities is represented, every one of our constituents is represented by a youth, as well as the Mace Tour, going out and letting youth across the Northwest Territories know how the Legislative Assembly operates, what our jobs are as decision makers, as the Member referred to it in his Member statement, and how to create legislation and bring up concerns from our communities.

I encourage all Members of the Legislative Assembly to engage your youth on decisions that are being made here, in the House, any legislations that will be coming before this House, as well as any other policies or strategies that are going to affect them and affect them into the future. I think every Member in this Legislative Assembly has that responsibility to take.

I appreciate the Minister's answer, in particular around the Safe Schools bill. That's exactly what I am talking about. I think it's great to get information out to young people and to students in particular about how government works, about how bills are shaped and what they're going to do to our environment, to our economy. That's really what I am talking about.

So one thing that they've done at different levels of government is establish youth councils that can provide a standing body of advice for government. Is that something the Minister would consider?