Legislative Assembly photo

Roles

In the Legislative Assembly

Elsewhere

Crucial Fact

  • Her favourite word was health.
Historical Information Sandy Lee is no longer a member of the Legislative Assembly.

Last in the Legislative Assembly March 2011, as MLA for Range Lake

Won her last election, in 2007, with 73% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Question 582-16(5): Multi-Year Funding For Hay River Committee For Persons With Disabilities March 3rd, 2011

I think I can safely state that just for our department there are lots of NGOs that we fund that are delivering many, many really substantive programming, like YWCA, Sally Ann, all of our...I don’t know. I don’t want to exclude anybody. They have the stability of funding. All those applications do not come up to my office where I need to review them. So I think we need to accept that there are different types and sizes and characters of NGOs and I want to assure the Member that I don’t micromanage in that way. This is why I just want to undertake to look at this situation and see what happened from an accounting and procedural point of view. I will look to see if this group is one that could be considered for multi-year funding, if that’s what could have prevented what’s happening here. It’s because there are so many kinds of NGOs it’s hard for me to say that we could just do a blanket approach in this way.

Question 582-16(5): Multi-Year Funding For Hay River Committee For Persons With Disabilities March 3rd, 2011

Ideally when a group gets funded they should be given enough notice to make adjustments between fiscal years and to be able to plan. I’m not sure if you need a multi-year arrangement to do that, because an argument could still be made that even if you had a multi-year, if there’s some kind of an operational and

procedural delay, that’s the issue there in what the Member is saying. Without knowing details of the situation, I don’t know what happened to have the delay and also why some of those very specific adjustments that were requested were denied. I think we should leave room for some of the financial accounting rules or some other rules that we’re not aware of in this Chamber that our officials are asked to follow. This is why I’d rather undertake to look into this and get back to the Member with a more detailed answer. I am willing to be open-minded to look at some options.

Question 582-16(5): Multi-Year Funding For Hay River Committee For Persons With Disabilities March 3rd, 2011

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Listening to her questions as well as the Member’s statement, I want to say first off that we do provide multi-year funding to organizations. We review them on a case-by-case basis. So I want to state that to start with.

There are two issues the Member is raising. One is there are some specific situations here that happened with respect to this organization whereby they asked to make adjustments specifically, and I would like to look into that and I can commit to look into those details and see how we could accommodate. Secondly, I will undertake also to see if we could look into doing multi-year funding with this organization.

Question 579-16(5): Food Mail Program March 3rd, 2011

Mr. Speaker, I know some things take longer than we would like, but the Member knows that we have been able to have pretty quick turnaround on things, understanding, though, in this situation, that I need to talk to a federal body. I need to have my officials talk to the federal body about the specific situation he is asking. I will undertake to look into it as soon as possible. I will get together with him as soon as possible as well. Thank you.

Question 579-16(5): Food Mail Program March 3rd, 2011

Mr. Speaker, I need to first get the information. I am not sure if I will be talking to the Minister on a specific situation like that, but I would be happy to inquire on the basis of facts to

get the answer for that specific situation and, in terms of a process, where could a person go to inquire when something like that happens.

Question 579-16(5): Food Mail Program March 3rd, 2011

Mr. Speaker, as I stated, I would be happy to get detailed information and get back to the Member, as well as finding out perhaps a process in place that people could inquire to. I will get back to the Member. Thank you.

Question 579-16(5): Food Mail Program March 3rd, 2011

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member knows, this is a federal program administered by the federal government, but I would be happy to just sit down with him and get the details and inquire on his behalf. Thank you.

Tabled Document 165-16(5): NWT Women Giving Birth - Number Of Discharges In And Outside The NWT 2005-06 To 2009-10 Tabled Document 166-16(5): Program Enrolments And Graduates For All Nursing Programs Between 1998-2011 Tabled Document 167-16(5): Bachelor Of Science In Nursing, Enrolments By Ethnicity March 2nd, 2011

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Further to my returns to written questions earlier today I wish to table the following three documents entitled NWT Women Giving Birth - Number of Discharges In and Outside of the NWT 2005-2006 to 2009-2010; Program Enrolments and Graduates for All Nursing Programs Between 1998 and 2011; and Bachelor of Science in Nursing, Enrolments by Ethnicity and Year, 2006-2011.

Question 572-16(5): Safety And Security Of Staff And Psychiatric Patients At Stanton Territorial Hospital March 2nd, 2011

We are talking about I think two things here. On both counts we are doing a review. One, the Member is aware of the mental health and addictions review that we are undertaking as an entire mental health programming at the hospital as well as in communities. We acknowledge that there is room for improvement in that area and we have hired a study team, consulting team who have been here and talked to the stakeholders. We’re looking forward to having recommendations on that to improve our Mental Health and Addictions Program as a whole.

With respect to the psychiatric unit, every incident where they’ve had situations that the Member describes, yes, we have done the review and they are working and put safeguards in place to prevent those incidents from happening again. It is acknowledged, though, that the patients do get to go on a pass without having an escort at all times. I mean, in many cases the passes work and the

patients benefit from that. It’s just that we have unfortunate situations where mishaps do happen.