I appreciate the Member's passion on this topic and the desire to keep people at home. It is our mandate to help seniors age in place with dignity, and of course, that's every senior in the NWT. The way that long-term care works is that people don't go in to long-term care unless they have 24/7 nursing needs or chronic conditions, complex conditions, that need full-time nursing care. Unfortunately, the reason that people don't last a long time after they go into long-term care is because they are already pretty ill. The average stay in long-term care is around two-and-a-half years. I appreciate that that is not an outcome that anyone wants. The outcome that people want is for elders to stay in their community.
As I have said previously, there is a combination here of homecare support, which is provided by the Department of Health and Social Services, and a facility in which the elders can live, which is within the NWT Housing Corporation. I have committed, and the Housing Corporation Minister has agreed, that we will work together to sort out how we can make this aging-in-place pledge a reality.