Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The NWT Seniors' Society has requested this government and the previous government create an NWT seniors' strategy for a number of reasons. I am going to recap some of them today. The first is that the existing strategic framework, called "Our Elders, Our Communities," was published in 2014, and much has changed in that time. It also is a strategy that is specific to Health and Social Services. It doesn't address issues such as housing, transportation, social inclusion, and so on. While this is a good strategy in and of itself, it's not current to our needs at the moment.
There is, in fact, a national seniors' strategy, but it does not address NWT-specific issues. The result of that is that it's helpful, but not specific enough. What we have now in the NWT are 17 programs and services designed for or accessed by seniors and offered by departments and agencies, including Health and Social Services, the NWT Housing Corporation, Education, Culture and Employment, Justice, and Municipal and Community Affairs. What we need is to bring all of these programs together into one strategy and action plan for a whole-of-government approach. This is analogous to the integrated case management-type model, where there is a one-stop shop for all of these programs and services, and that roadmap is included in an NWT seniors' strategy.
Some of the areas that present gaps now that we know about are assistance with home maintenance, yard work, housekeeping, grocery shopping, and other essential activities of daily living. These are not covered by homecare. Homecare is a nursing function, and so this is a gap for seniors who are trying to age in place in their own homes. There will be much more said about homecare when the report is tabled, but we know that homecare is kind of a patchwork approach at this point and needs to be strengthened.
We also know that there is no transportation available to seniors outside of Yellowknife, and yet transportation is key to seniors who want to age in place in order for them to go grocery shopping and to meet their social needs, among other things.
Affordable housing is a huge issue for seniors. People have heard me talk before about how the waiting list at Avens here was six years long, last I heard. I know Avens is interested in expanding their offerings, but even when they do, there will still be a shortage of seniors' housing across the NWT and especially of affordable housing. We know that, for seniors, as for everyone else in the Northwest Territories, housing is their biggest expense, and they need assistance in the form of some kind of a subsidy.
What I am asking for here, then, is that the government create the resources necessary to engage a broad stakeholder group of people who interact with seniors, not only within government, but also within the non-profit sector, so that there is a concerted effort to create a strategy that addresses this huge segment of our population, huge and growing, and that we live up to the commitments of allowing our elders to age in place by creating this coordinated approach to their needs.
Further, to the statement that I made today about elder abuse and the soon-to-be-lapsed strategy on combatting elder abuse, this also should be included in the seniors' strategy.
Mr. Speaker, I want to commend to my colleagues in this House how we can make seniors' lives more functional, richer, and meet more of their basic needs by making a roadmap for how to do that and implementing it. Those are my opening comments. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.