The Housing Corporation had last looked at the core need income threshold in 2015. We are currently looking at reviewing the core need income threshold for the Northwest Territories and also for the seniors, as well, we do have $1 thousand dollars deduction of the calculated grant. As I said previously, I will provide further documentation for the Member just to further elaborate and explain how we work with the CNIT program throughout the Northwest Territories because it does vary depending on jurisdiction.

Thank you to the Minister for further documentation and also the willingness to review that. When it comes to public housing, Yellowknife is considered a zone A community. This means that a person who makes a base salary of an MLA can live in public housing for $890 a month, that a manager with the GNWT is eligible for public housing for $1295 a month, and a Minister would pay a rent of $1625 per month. This is all found in the public housing brochure. It's valuable to remember that Yellowknife also currently has more people on its housing list than the total number of housing units available in the entire city. Given the highest income identified in the NWT Housing Corporation's rent scale is $8,334 and up, I'm wondering if there is a maximum eligible income for public housing in Yellowknife.

Yes. Looking at the core need for the Yellowknife area and also looking at the minimum and the maximum, the minimum of core need income threshold is $20,000, the max is $100,000. I do hear the Member speaking about we do have high income earners in public housing. Right now, the Housing Corporation has a number of 248 clients that we are looking at to work with throughout the Northwest Territories and transferring them into home ownership. The Housing Corporation, as of right now, we are looking our single-family dwellings in the smaller communities, they are up for sale and we are working with our clients to provide programming for home ownership.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Monsieur le President. My question is for the Minister of Health and Social Services. The problem with the sterilization equipment at Stanton Territorial Hospital is about to enter its fourth month, and it appears we are tinkering away with settings and hoping to find a solution. I have to ask the basic question: why can't we fix this problem? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for that question. This is such a difficult issue because people are in pain waiting for this sterilization equipment to go back up to full functioning. It's very difficult to say to them, "We don't know when it's going to be fixed." What I can tell you is what you already know from your statement, Member for Frame Lake. These are complex issues. There are a number of different factors. There is the water quality, water testing for mineralization. The instruments themselves, Stanton has had specialist repair people come up from the South to assist with trying to figure out what's wrong with the machines, and unfortunately, none of this has yet resulted in a full return to sterilization and a full surgical load. Thank you.

I want to thank the Minister for that. She alluded to the fact that patients are left in ill-health and misery. We just don't have a way of scheduling surgeries yet. Can the Minister tell me how many surgeries are on hold and what other measures can be taken? For example, can we not ship sterilization equipment into the Northwest Territories or other options to get people to surgeries they need?

It's not as if there are no surgeries taking place, it's just that some surgeries which require larger instruments are not taking place. As a matter of fact, since July, 200 surgeries have been completed, and of the 124 surgeries that were cancelled at the end of July, about 23 of those have been completed. There is a need, of course, to address this big backlog. Some of the things we're looking at is whether it would be possible for people to go to the Inuvik Regional Hospital and have surgery performed there. We had been considering sending patients to Alberta, but unfortunately, that is no longer an option because surgeries for Albertans are also being cancelled for a variety of reasons, including a surge of COVID cases.

The department has looked at the possibility of having the surgical instruments reprocessed somewhere else. They actually are going to perform an experiment in the coming week by sending surgical equipment to the Foothills Hospital in Calgary to see whether the sterilization works in that facility so that they can identify whether the problem is with the instruments themselves or whether there still remains a problem with the sterilization machine.

A big part of the problem here is the uncertainty for patients that are waiting. Not only have their surgeries been cancelled but there doesn't seem to be a solution anywhere in the future. Will the Minister see that regular public updates are issued? The last one, I think, was October 5^th, three weeks ago. It doesn't even seem like there is a regular schedule, so can the Minister commit to a regularly scheduled update of the NTHSSA website and some way of actually notifying individual patients about what's going on?

There will be a letter going to all of the patients awaiting surgery at Stanton this week so that they can have an update on what's happening there directly from Stanton. In the meantime, if they are having pain management issues, and I know that's very common with leg, hip surgeries, then they should continue to be in touch with their healthcare provider to have appropriate treatment for that and that also can be done virtually if people are housebound. We want to expand the capacity, obviously, and we need to tell people when this is going to be resolved. Unfortunately, there is no specific date. All I can say is that they are working on it very diligently and we can certainly commit to updating the website every two weeks to tell people what has been tried in the prior to weeks and what the results are.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that commitment to update the website every couple of weeks. I think that way people will at least have somewhere where they can get information about what's happening. The Minister herself talked about how COVID is surging in Alberta and that might cause some difficulties in terms of sending patients there. The other concern that I've heard expressed is, of course, the impending drastic cuts that may be made by the Alberta provincial government to their healthcare system as publicly announced by their Premier. What can the Minister tell us about these impending cuts, and how that might affect our ability to get surgeries and perhaps other healthcare in Alberta? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

I'm not sure if I can answer that question. We don't have any inside information. We have heard, of course, about the privatization being contemplated in Alberta. We've heard about the possibility of wildcat strikes. We've heard about the surge in COVID cases. I'm going to say those are factors which will mean that there are fewer surgeries available to Northerners rather than more. Those are really issues that are beyond our control. They have been helpful in helping us to validate the sterilization in their own machines, but as for sending people there, that seems like a more difficult proposition. To be perfectly honest, those people I know who are waiting for hip replacements and other major surgery are not very keen to go to Edmonton for surgery at this point. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Member not leaving me out in the questions today. He was able to teach me a new word today, which is "zoonotics." Zoonotics is where viruses and other pathogens can be transmitted from animals or insects to humans, so rabies would be an example of a zoonotic. Public health has a role in monitoring and responding to those risks when they are present in the population, particularly in investigating human illness that may be a result of a jump from an animal to a person, so the focus here is on the person rather than the animal. Thank you.

Today is actually an appropriate day to talk about zoonotics as the first dog in Canada tested positive for COVID-19 today, so there is a bit of an overlap. One of my main concerns in this area and one of the great works that the NWT SPCA does is making sure dogs are vaccinated for rabies and making sure rabies does not then transfer to the human population. Presently, that is not being done in all of the communities. Can the Minister of health put together a plan to make sure we are having rabies vaccines in all of our communities?

It's my understanding that there is a lay vaccination program in the NWT that ensures rabies vaccines for animals are available to communities who do not have a local or resident veterinarian to administer the vaccines themselves. The big challenge here is getting people to administer the vaccine, especially where there aren't veterinarians or other technicians who can do this themselves. I know that there has been some work between Health and Social Services and my colleague at ENR to identify and train individuals to administer those vaccines. I do not have information about how many of those people and in which communities they exist, but that is something I could certainly provide to the Member.

Yes, that is actually the heart of the issue. We presently provide the vaccines, and they are free. Communities can use them. It's difficult to get someone to actually deliver those vaccines, and that is where the NWT SPCA really fills that gap. Another way that has been done is that multiple jurisdictions have hired or contracted a public health veterinarian. I believe we only have three veterinarians operating in the territory right now. Is this an option that public health has reviewed?

I am not aware that the department is looking at hiring a public veterinarian. We would certainly be working with ENR in the event that they are looking at hiring a public veterinarian so that we can work together on making sure that zoonotics do not proliferate in the NWT.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions, Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Presently, ENR has a wildlife veterinarian. They do lots of great work. It's essential work to making sure the population and health of our wildlife is there. I now learn that public health has a bit of a role in zoonotics and MACA seemingly has some of a role but seems to deny it consistently. My question for the Minister of health is: is it possible to work with those departments, see if there are some gaps here, and possibly create a funding pool to address them?