Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm not going to repeat everything that I just said about community-based initiatives and capacity. There are resources available in the communities. If it's treatment, there are limited options in the communities. It's primarily focused around on the land healing. If people want to attend residential facility-based treatment, then they would need to connect with community counselling and get a referral. The waiting times vary depending on the place that the patient would like to go or the resident would like to go. But all of these services are in place. The activation point is that people need to engage the system. The system does not go out and proactively say you need drug assistance and this is how.

So I really encourage her to -- when she has cases of people who are requiring treatment or requiring additional supports, that they proactively reach out to the healthcare provider. And if that's not satisfactory, then escalate to my office. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Monfwi. Oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services.

During the main estimates this week in the Committee of the Whole, the Minister stated the review of the medical travel policy was complete and committee was briefed. However, can the Minister confirm if the escort policy has made any changes in this review? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.

Yes, thank you. Thank you to the Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes for that question. In the briefing that we provided almost a year ago, we went over a number of areas that we looked to examine the complaints that we had at the time. They had to do with whether escorts should be provided to people at a specific age. We also looked at the criteria for the escorts, the exceptions policy, how the exceptions policy is implemented and so on. So there is not a new ministerial directive on this. I think there's new awareness of ways in which we can improve the services that we provide to residents.

One of the big learnings, it's appropriate to what I've just said to the Member for Monfwi, is that we find that people don't always ask for an escort, and that should be the starting point. If you ask for an escort, then the practitioner can make a decision about that and then there's, you know, the possibility of an exception if it's not granted. So I just want to say that we're on a continuous improvement path with medical travel, and I appreciate the Member bringing up issues as they arise. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know I remember being in that review. I don't remember any changes, actually, really presented to us. But I'll move on.

Can the Minister advise us how clients who stay in hotels -- or can the Minister advise us if clients who stay in hotels, can they make -- ensure that there's either restaurants in that hotel that are being -- that provide the meals or provide them with per diems so that they can eat in those restaurants in the hotels? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Member bringing this concern to my attention. It's my understanding that we are also on a continuous quality improvement process with the food. We respond to complaints as we receive them by contacting the service provider and asking them to remedy the complaints that we bring to their attention.

Once again, in this area I would ask people who are finding the food they're provided inadequate in quantity or quality to make sure they talk to the service provider about that so that if at all possible, the situation can be remedied without it being escalated to my office which would involve considerable time, which, you know, we want a more -- an efficient process. So I would suggest that people talk to the service providers with any complaints they have. We do have more formal process, such as an audit, but that's not where we would go first. We try for a one-on-one resolution. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, I mean, I'm an Indigenous person. I'm very vocal. I will stand up for myself. But the majority of our Indigenous people and a lot of our elders when they go into health authority, a health system, any type of system, they don't speak up for themselves. They come to us afterwards and then they speak to us because they trust us. They won't speak to the people working there because they don't know them. So, you know, when the Minister says that they should speak to them, they just end up hungry while they're there. That's why I'm raising the issue, and I'm hoping that this issue could be looked into.

So can the Minister explain how the Department of Health and Social Services does quality control and when do they do quality control with the contractor that's providing meals and the boarding home to the medical travel patients? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the NTHSSA is interested in hearing from clients about their experience in the boarding home and in other parts of the health and social services system. There's a patient experience questionnaire available right now. So there's provision for those conversations to happen every day if they need to. We need a starting point of a collection of complaints.

And I appreciate the Member's point that she feels that people are not vocal but I don't know how else we can find out what's wrong in order to be able to fix it. We need some kind of system, and if it's through the Member then that's one way to learn about client experience and how we can improve on that.

I would really encourage the Member to print out copies of the patient experience questionnaire, or obtain it from the Inuvik Regional Hospital, and share that with people who are frequent medical travel users so that we have that way of addressing the issues that she's raising today. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And, you know, thank you to the Minister for the -- and I have shared quality control. Again, I've worked in the health system for many years, and we've done the quality control for years with the Health and Social Services. You know, the rates that we get back are not always great. So, you know what, this is actually a good pop for the Indigenous advocate, patient advocate can be following up with all our medical travel patients. So if we can get those positions in place, great, then they will be working on stuff like that.

Will the Minister also commit to program consistency within medical travel policy and possibly provide a live algorithm based on past approved exception list for their staff so they can refer to this and be more efficient in applying exceptions on the -- and also with their health staff to making sure that these exceptions are being requested at the time of the medical travel. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the question. I don't have the information to answer it so I'll get back to the Member. Thank you.

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

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Lands responsible for granting of recreational leases. I won't ask the Minister for a full rundown of how long lease applications have been sitting in the department's offices, but can the Minister tell us roughly how many recreation land lease applications are currently active for the Yellowknife area and whether there are any service standards in place? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for Lands.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have 19 current applications in the Yellowknife area under aboriginal consultation. Our consultation commencing period is about 60 days for this area; however, if there's comments or concerns received through the consultation period, it may be extended and basically the consultation is not closed until concerns related to aboriginal rights are addressed and accommodated.

In regards to customer service standards, we do have new customer service standards. We've sent it to committee, and we are actually implementing them as we speak right now. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. It would be great to get those service standards on the department's website.

I know of at least two applications which are passing their first-year anniversary pending the outcome of consultations. We know that there's little prospect of these applications being dealt with before any Indigenous land rights agreements for the Yellowknife area's completed. So practically speaking, Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell us why his department continues to accept recreational lease applications in this area? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. Just a comment. As for the service standards, once we get them from committee and they get improvements, we will make sure we post them on that.

In regards to his question, there's nothing prohibiting the department from receiving and accepting applications in the areas that are not subject to a land withdrawal. The department has also communicated that it's not accepting applications for cabin leases in focused areas along the Ingraham Trail and Highway No. 3. The department informs the application -- applicants that their application remains subject to consultation and if there's a land withdrawal in place, the department does not accept those applications. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le President. One of the top-level priorities for this government in our mandate of priorities was to settle and implement treaty land resources and self-government agreements. As the Minister with the lead for lands issues, can the Minister tell us why he does not simply tell applicants that they are unlikely to be successful until a land rights agreement is achieved? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I thank the Member for the question. Again, there is nothing prohibiting the department from receiving and accepting applications in areas that are not subject to a land withdrawal. The department informs the applicants their application remains subject to consultation. The department must respect its obligations to Indigenous governments. We take any concerns regarding potential rights or impacts of aboriginal rights seriously and work through these concerns, which does take us time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. There might be room for some movement on recreation leases in the Yellowknife area if GNWT would consider an interim co-management approach or maybe even revenue sharing with Indigenous governments.

Can the Minister tell us whether his department has ever considered these approaches and what was the outcome? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have -- we've been having ongoing discussions with Indigenous governments on ways to cooperatively plan and manage lands. This includes land use planning, local area planning, and mechanisms such as ballot draws in high demand areas. We are also encouraging Indigenous governments to work through negotiation table to make sure that the current land withdrawals better reflects their land selection interests. Land withdrawals are the tool we use to protect land for future land selection. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.