Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Oral questions. Member from Great Slave.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the process of medical travel can be confusing. Depending on what treatment you need, intake can be different and it's also not really clear to some folks who are not employed by the GNWT as to what stream of medical travel they fall into. From personal experience, the forms for medical travel are also confusing and duplicate information.

Can the Minister explain if there is any work underway to improve standard operating procedures or communications with the public for the different streams of medical travel? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Great Slave. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, medical travel, you know, in the Northwest Territories, we're moving 44,000 people at any -- you know, to be able to access care so it is very, very complex. And so when we think about the -- when I -- you know, as a Minister now that has to oversee this, there is medical travel that are for non-insured health benefits clients, so those who are Inuit or Status, you know, who hold a status card. Then there's extended health benefits and medical travel for those. Then there's Metis benefits for those who qualify and then the travel benefits for them. And there's the GNWT, which the GNWT administers for the six -- you know, whatever -- the amount of employees that we have and their benefits, and that is removed from the department of health now. And then there's those who don't fall in any of these categories. So with that there's things that need -- that are currently being done. So I just needed to make sure that people are aware that there's five different areas that this happens. So work is currently being done to review several areas.

One of the things that we've heard on and on again is the exceptions policy to streamline decisions for benefits for individuals that have undue financial hardship or extraordinary health needs and a unique situation. So that's something that's being reviewed, working collaboratively with the federal counterpart to clarify and improve the administration of the non-insured health benefits, which is very complex. They're reviewing the boarding home services and, you know, this is time -- like, these contracts are coming up within the next fiscal year. Gathering information from Indigenous governments because they're hearing from their residents, so. And working closely with our counter parts, you know, with like all of the airlines and the people that move people throughout the territory. And, again, like I said, yes, and shifting all of the benefits for medical travel out of health and social services to GNWT for those that -- so we only have to deal with the non-GNWTs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm curious if the department has been looking into any of the most high need areas for medical travel, and what I mean by this is the areas of medical requirements that have a lot of subscription or uptake. So what I'm curious about is does the Minister think that we could bring specialists to the North to remove long haul burden on folks to go out of territory which is also a high cost for the GNWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to apologize to the interpreters. I know I've been talking quite fast and I've been kind of given the notice.

So, Mr. Speaker, this already occurs in many instances. You know, we have urology, pediatrics, cardiology, neurology that come here. We continue to explore opportunities to further develop sustainable in-territory programs as well as remote services to supplement or replace out-of-territory services. The priority is to deliver sustainable and high quality services. And you know, the medical travel and the people that are travelling not necessarily are related to specialists, there's lots of other -- like, for surgery, for different things, so. And we are monitoring this. And the department, we are currently reviewing everything right now within the medical travel policy because we do know it is very convoluted and complex. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And it's really wonderful to hear from the Minister that they're looking in-depth to a lot of the issues that I'm highlighting today.

Mr. Speaker, I'm also wondering, though, about improvements to processes that complement medical travel. So right now if someone accesses a practitioner on medical travel in the south who recommends lab work as an example, they then must get the lab requisition redone in the territory so they can have those services completed in the NWT. The question is, can the Minister speak to what work could be done to streamline this process to change southern requisitions into NWT requisitions that can be fulfilled without the need to then go and book an appointment with the overtaxed medical practitioner system that we have? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, I think that the problem -- like, this is an issue and this is an ongoing issue because even though we are the Northwest Territories and we do referral service to Alberta health, their practitioners are not able to -- and the Member has stated -- are not allowed to -- like, you can't take their requisition because they're not licensed in our territory to go in and do the blood work here. And I know that there's back and forth. It's the same thing. Like, we can't take ours and take it down there and get blood work. So you know, there's a lot of work going on behind the scenes to try and work on those types of things. You know, and I think the -- when I look at all of those issues, these are complex. And it has a lot to do with patient health information and the legislation around that too. So when you get your blood work done and you get services done in Alberta, they tend -- they'll send the patient all of the information and then the patient themselves needs to bring that to their practitioner. So I hear the Member where they're saying, and the things that we're doing behind the scenes is trying to figure out ways to mitigate that because we know it is a tax on our -- getting in. And there's different legislation, things that we've all talked about in the past government and this government that's going to try and help that. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Great Slave.

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Further to the statement that I made a couple weeks ago. It's for the ECE. Can the department increase the senior home heating subsidy rates? That's a question for the Minister.

Thank you, Member from Monfwi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, are there barriers for the department to permanently increase the subsidies rate?

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, currently we budget about $2.2 million for this subsidy every year. We added approximately half a million dollars using internal resources in 2022-2023 and then again in 2023-2024 in order to acknowledge that heating fuel costs have gone up. While we recognize that heating fuel fluctuates throughout the year and when it is higher than usual, we do try to put more funding into this subsidy. But like I said before, we cannot afford within the department to continue to fund from within. We would need to have increases done to the program as a whole, and those dollars would have to be approved by the Legislative Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister confirm how many Tlicho residents are denied because their income exceeds the income threshold? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can confirm that while 59 applicants were approved from Tlicho region, there were 13 people who were denied for the seniors' home heating subsidy and that is because their income was over the income threshold. And what I do want to add here, because I want to acknowledge that some residents participate in seasonal employment, if somebody is denied because their previous year's income is too high but their income -- or their employment has changed in the following year, they can actually seek a reassessment from the department so that their income threshold is reflective of where they are actually at in their employment journey. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Monfwi.

Mr. Speaker, are there barriers for the department to increase the income threshold? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I would say the biggest barrier is budget. If we want to be able to provide more than the aim or the goal of 80 percent of heating costs to low and moderate income seniors across the territory, we would need to increase the budget for that. If the goal was to provide 100 percent, say, of subsidy for the cost of heat to seniors that are considered low and moderate income and who are not on income assistance, we would need to make sure that our budgets do reflect that and that the policy of the program reflects that as well.

Oral questions. Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is a follow-up question to the Minister of health from some of my questions yesterday.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister has said that there will not be job losses associated with COVID -- COVID funding sunsetting but it is not clear to me what changes may occur to where staff were placed in the system. Can the Minister describe in more detail what changes are proposed and how that will affect frontline operations at Stanton? Thank you.

Member from Frame Lake. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the funding -- and I guess I tried to explain this yesterday that the COVID funding that has come to -- will come to an end as of March 31st, there are going to be funding for was there for positions but like I said yesterday, there's no job losses because we've been increasing those numbers on those units with casuals and float and relief workers. And, you know, specific to the concerns that, you know, the Member is raising is the new funding that we had -- that I announced yesterday is to replace a lot of those positions that -- you know, to incur some of that cushion for those positions that COVID funding is ending, so. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So can the Minister describe to the House what the department is going to be doing to ensure that frontline staff, particularly nurses, are continuing to be supported in their roles in our hospitals in the NWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.