Thank you. Mr. Elkin.

Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And so the legal services, are those legal services available to solely health and social services or also available to families who are working with child and family services? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Yes, thank you. I'll ask Mr. Elkin if he has an answer to that. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Elkin.

Thank you. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm not really sure -- I'm in one -- on page 181, and I'm not sure if that's -- we're on that same page? I reviewed this section in the budget here, and I'm trying to find the section on facilities but I'm just going to speak to it here if it's okay.

I just want to mention that in our Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh riding in Fort Resolution, we have a brand-new facility that was built years back. It was a multi-million-dollar facility. It's a beautiful facility. Right now it's for seniors, and on the inside of the building we could have up to about four people. We have a kitchen. We have TV room and that kind of thing. And we also have cabins for seniors that want to be independent outside that facility.

But going back to the facility, I guess somewhere along the lines the health and social department made a decision to shut down that facility, and it's still operational but they no longer house elders inside the facility. They use it for programming. And there are elders on the outside cabins. But in 2018, they -- this issue was brought to the House in regards to a petition to reopen the facility, and I'm not sure where it went.

So my question to the Minister, is this something that -- that can we go back and take a look at that, because what's happening is that in our communities, a lot of our elders are getting old and they -- if they get sick, they go to Hay River, or they go to Yellowknife, or sometimes down to Edmonton and places like that. And a lot of times, they -- they want to -- if they're really sick and they got cancer, they probably want to be closer to home and that kind of thing. But most times, they end up passing away outside their home community. So there's got to be a way. I mean, you know, when we talk about, you know, in spirit of reconciliation, working together, and etcetera, and we got a budget of $594 million here. I just want to know if there's a way that we could probably work with the Minister and see -- and revisit that facility to see if we can provide those services for our elders again and bring them home. You know, if anything, you know, they want to die at home if they're closer to home and they're really sick.

And the other thing too is that we also need to have a home care nurse or something that we could, you know, care for them and that kind of thing. So I just want to ask the Minister if she maybe could maybe take a look at this and get back to me. Mahsi.

Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. I think regarding the home and home community care -- home care, that all goes under the next section. But I'm just going to let the Minister answer.

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

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I welcome the Minister to maybe have a meeting with the residents in Fort Resolution, the leadership, and the Metis Council, and to revisit the idea of maybe perhaps looking at restarting this facility. It's a shame that, you know, we got a beautiful facility. The government spent a lot of money building it. And now it's just being used for programs. So it would be nice if the Minister -- we could travel together to Fort Resolution and meet with the leadership there and see what we could do to listen to their issues, concerns.

I know -- it's my understanding that this issue's been brought to the House already. It's been talked about. I know the petition's been there. But, you know, when I hear from the Chiefs of the Metis leadership and the mayor in Fort Resolution, this issue is still there. And, you know, the elders don't really want to be in Hay River. You know, they want to be closer to home. If they are sick, they want to be with family, etcetera. You know, so there's got to be a solution here. If we could work it out, I welcome that. Thank you, Madam Speaker, to the Minister.

Minister of Health and Social Services.

Yes, thank you. Please do invite me to visit your communities. I would like to do that.

Thank you. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you for that. Another question I have on another note is the -- again, I went through this document. I'm trying to understand it. And the positions in Edmonton for Larga Homes, do we have any full-time positions there that have worked actually in Larga Home? The reason I say that is because we still do -- we still deal with patients that are going down south for medical travel. Sometimes they'll sit at the airport, and they don't have -- there's a language barrier. It's my understanding Largo Home is -- is one of the contract services that the government provides. But again, at the same time, they're -- there are barriers there. In that part of, in that part in Alberta, it's Cree. You know, here in the North we have, you know, six different cultures here that go down there, etcetera. And so that's a question I want to know, if we do -- do we have staff there? Thank you.

I just want to make sure that we're in the right section with Larga. I don't think this is the right section. Like, we have it all broken down, so -- but I'm going to give it to the Minister to answer if she can.

Sure. So the operation of the Larga House is contracted to the Gwich'in Tribal Council, and we contract them. They provide the services. We have heard in the past that they provide very good service. They're good to go to the airport and get people, take them to their appointments, and so on. But language can be a barrier.

Medical travel provides for an escort with somebody who doesn't understand English. So that's one possible way to assist a person travelling for medical who doesn't speak English.

Another possibility that we haven't fully developed is whether it would be useful to have the kind of Indigenous patient navigator available at Larga House that we are talking about establishing -- well, we are going to establish in Fort Smith, Hay River, Yellowknife, and Inuvik, that it may be useful to have that kind of a navigator available to the people who use Larga services in Edmonton. Thank you.

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

No, that's all the questions I have. And again, I -- as I go through the documents, I'm just trying to understand that section. But -- but Madam Chair, if we were to go through this document, can we continue to just read out what page we're on so that we could follow the discussion? Mahsi.

We were on health and social programs still. Everybody gets a chance to speak to it before we move on. So do I have any Members who haven't spoken to this section wishing to speak to it? Member for Thebacha.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to ask a couple of questions with the family violence prevention. Are there any shelters in the North that are serving men? You know, when -- in my former leadership role, there was a lot of men that required that. You know, it's an -- it's not only women that are mentally and physically abused. There's also a lot of men. And men don't come forward as easily as women do. And so in -- I just want to know -- also I also want to see a consideration for that eventually. There should at least be one home or one shelter in the North that should be serving the male population, because it could be very, very, very challenging for men who are in that situation. I've seen a lot of cases that -- of that even in my community.

I was also going to ask is this part of the -- family violence, is it -- I don't know if it's a health and social program that it could be brought into the schools at an early age, because, you know, it's a -- when there's trauma at home, it affects everybody in the whole family, including the children. So I just wonder if -- if we could start considering some of those programs in the elementary and the high schools. That's -- you know, if we catch some of these programs and have counselling for family violence prevention at early stages in life, it might prevent some awful things that happen in the future. Those are the couple -- and I also wanted to comment on, you know, you have under mental health and addictions and On the Land Healing Fund. I just wanted to also mention that it's over $2 million that was undersubscribed, and I want you to know that in my other leadership role that we had sometimes a six week program with a complete team out of -- out of addictions facilities in the south. We chose which facility we were going to go with and brought the entire team up to Fort Smith under this fund a couple times. And we had a six-week program, not 42 days. And it was -- you know, and we have some very successful candidates. Just last week, I met one of the candidates in Walmart and, you know, after years of addiction, this person is clean and sober, and it's overwhelming. And, you know, when it's undersubscribed, people don't realize they can do a lot with this fund. And you could bring the whole team in, and that includes psychologists, an elder, the whole team. There was five to a team. And also -- we also had someone that actually distributed the medication, which is a very important part of the program. And we also had every night kind of an entertainment thing with Salt River, and we invited people from the community to come to speak to them. So this could be -- I don't think people -- it's proposal-driven. Maybe sometimes maybe you could think about it, but not everybody -- well, I've had incredible staff at Salt River but maybe some of the smaller communities don't have that, and if they are assisted in applying for the program I think that it could be a point in the right direction. That's all I have to say, Madam Chair.