I invite the Member to submit a request to the department to look into his case in particular and to sign a consent form so that the information can be shared with me, and then with him, so that we understand exactly what's going on there. We are confident that our diabetic care is good in every community. No doubt we could be better.

To that end, we are instituting, as you may know, primary healthcare reform. This has a special focus on chronic conditions. It is being rolled out throughout the NWT. It was started last August, moving into the Deh Cho and Yellowknife regions in December, and then onwards to the other regions of the NWT. What primary healthcare reform does is ensure that there is this continuity of care among different practitioners. Between that and the flags on the electronic medical records, I feel confident that we can stay on top of the situation diabetics are in in the small communities.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I don't know why I need to sign a consent form; I'm already giving my complaint to the Minister. We don't have a diabetic program in my community and, I don't believe, in all of the communities. I would like her to have her department investigate the health centre. They drew blood from me twice. Where did it go? I don't have any results back yet, nothing. I don't even have a program. I told you I was in a program in Hay River. It was a very well laid out program. In my community, I don't have that. This is a debilitating disease that could get out of hand if we don't have any care in our communities. That's more just a comment, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi.

Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. Would the Minister like to take that as a comment? Oral questions. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned in my statement, when a patient indicates they want to enter treatment, they often must be medically detoxed prior to being sent South for treatment or going on the land. Can the Minister explain the process for receiving medical detox in the Northwest Territories and what she is doing to address the barriers to accessing it? Thank you.

Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. All of the treatment facilities that we have contracts with do offer detox, either on site or through a partnership with a local detox facility. In most cases, individuals do need to detox before they can start attending treatment. There are several options, though, in addition to doing the detox on site at the facility in which they are going to do their addictions treatment. It's possible to detox in one of the NWT hospitals. That decision is made on a case-by-case basis with a physician referral that can be obtained through the local health practitioner, whether that's in a large centre or a smaller one. The detox is, as the Member has said, a very important step in addictions-based treatment or on-the-land treatment or any kind of treatment, because alcohol dependency creates a physical dependency, as well, and the effects of withdrawing have to be managed properly in a medical setting. Thank you.

I respectfully disagree with the Minister. My contacts tell me that that is not the case, and it is very difficult, as I explained in my statement last night, getting somebody in for medical detox. Moving on, we have one of the highest rates of mental health issues for youth in Canada, yet we still don't have a child and adolescent psychiatric unit. Can the Minister tell me if such a unit is currently being planned, and if so, could she include timelines? If not, can the Minister explain why we are not ensuring adequate facilities for our most vulnerable?

I would like to begin by highlighting that in-patient mental healthcare is not best practice for children and youth. It's not a good idea to put them in a hospital in an in-patient setting unless that's a last resort. Supporting youth, rather, in the community is what we consider to be the best practice at this point, and it's done through the child and youth care counsellors, who are available in the school and who we have spoken about quite often in this House, and also by the child and youth mental health coordinator at Stanton hospital.

The coordinator is leading a number of key initiatives to improve our approach to caring for children and youth with mental health needs, and some examples are: working with the Stanton Territorial Pediatric In-patient Unit to develop in-patient psychiatric admission processes and programming for youth who do need this service; working with the Stanton team to build care pathways, therapeutic resources, after-care, and staff capacity for caring for this population; supporting health centre staff across the territory with mental health systems navigation and building their skill sets to care for children and youth in need of mental health services; and leading the implementation of the Northwest Territories' partnership with the Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto to improve access to specialized child psychiatric services across our regions and communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would also state that I think a psychiatric unit doesn't necessarily always mean a facility or a building, but perhaps a unit made up of dedicated of professionals and staff to look after children and adolescents specifically. I am grateful to hear that the Minister does have people looking toward improving these supports. Last, I would just like to know if the Minister is prepared to first acknowledge then act to address the growing medical crisis we are facing when it comes to supporting our people who are struggling with mental health and addictions. When the Minister responds to ask me where to prove that we're in a crisis to my questions, then I would state back that even one person falling through the cracks is a crisis.

Yes, I recognize the Member and I don't agree on this. She has been soliciting horror stories on Facebook and, apparently, has been very gratified with that. What we know from the Canadian Institute for Health Information is that there isn't a significant change in the number of hospitalizations, so it is not correct to characterize it as a crisis. We do know that mental health is a significant issue in this territory. We invest in it every year. We know that the issues are complex, that they are rooted in social determinants of health and, in some cases, specifically in our shameful legacy of colonization and residential schools. We continue to provide, through a number of avenues which I have made the Member aware of, support to people who have mental health issues, so that they can recover and live their best lives.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to state that I think it's disgusting that the Minister would characterize my wanting to advocate for my constituents and residents of this territory as collecting horror stories that I find gratifying. I find it disgusting, and I find it disgusting that the Minister does not accept that she is in the middle of a crisis and that the pandemic is only accelerating that crisis. If she is going to continue to deny the problem, we aren't going to see any solutions, and we are only going to see things get worse. I'm just going to leave it at that. Thank you.

Thank you, Member for Great Slave. I'll take that as a comment.

I will take that under advisement and get back to the House. Just to be clear, I would like to ask what your point of order is.

My point of order is that the Member was impugning motives to me which are not valid. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. I will take this under advisement, because usually we offer a debate. We will get back to this tomorrow, hopefully. I will report back tomorrow on my decision and offer debate at that time. Thank you. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I will be the first to admit that my Internet skills are not the greatest, but I can't seem to find anything about the mysterious minimum wage committee on any GNWT website. Nothing can be found about its mandate, composition, or the 2014 and 2018 reports. Can the Minister explain the nearly total absence of public information on the minimum wage committee? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier, I think the Member said that, apparently, there is a mysterious minimum wage committee. I can assure the Member that it's not "apparently." It does, in fact, exist. He might recall it from the half-dozen times I have mentioned it in this House. Google, I'm sure, checks Hansard, as well, and so it probably came up with explanations of this committee that I've given in the past. It is a committee made up of two members of industry, two members of labour, and a member representing an NGO, and they meet every two years to discuss potential changes to the minimum wage, and they provide the Minister of the day with three options and their rationale.

This is not a public document, as it is a recommendation made to a member of the Executive Council, but in respect to the terms of reference and more information like that, I appreciate that the Member did bring this to our attention. I don't want there to be any mystery around this, so we will provide some more information on the website so that, next time the Member Googles it, it will be very clear and front and centre. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I wish all mysteries could be solved as easily as the Minister says, but I do appreciate his efforts to try to bring some greater transparency on this. When I raised the questions about the NWT Wage Top-up Program and the relationship to the minimum wage, the Minister of Finance had mentioned that the minimum wage committee is working away on this, but can the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment briefly describe what this committee is doing and the schedule for increasing the minimum wage?

As I stated, the committee met a number of times. They put together a report. I received that report. I shared that report before Christmas with the Standing Committee on Social Development. I received feedback from the Standing Committee on Social Development in January, I believe, and I am now considering options going forward. The Wage Top-up Program administered by Finance is time-limited. I believe the Minister stated yesterday that it ends on February 28^th, and so I consider things like that. I consider the fact that we are in a pandemic. Our borders are closed, and the majority of those earning minimum wage are in the hardest-hit sectors of our economy; servers, people like that. There is a lot to consider here, and I am having conversations with my Cabinet colleagues. I am happy to have more conversations with Members, and I will make a determination at some point in the coming weeks, I imagine, just so that everyone is aware of what is happening and has plenty of heads up.

I want to thank the Minister for continuing to shed light on the minimum wage committee and its work. Since April 1, 2020, the effective minimum wage for the NWT has been basically $18 an hour through the Wage Top-up Program, and this has now been taken up by about 9 percent of the total NWT labour force. This program is not going to go on forever, as the Minister said, but it also a clear indication of how ridiculously low our minimum wage actually is. Can the Minister tell us whether it is his intention to roll back the effective minimum wage for 9 percent of our workforce to something less than $18 an hour?