EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
I had asked parents and they have asked me, “How is it better that the children move from here to the south?”
We were told not too long ago about the foster homes, about how half of them have reached agreements about sending them down south.
How does sending children south better than what used to be the group home up here?
He is asking how it can be better.
I was listening to some noise behind me and the MLA asked about how it could be considered to be better.
When a child has been taken over by social services, they have discussions with the parents.
They would be sent down south according to policies and protocols.
Perhaps what I’m trying to get at is, in relation to the child, we want to see services up in our territory so that relatives can see children in care every now and then.
It seems that there was room up here for the children you sent down south, if I could be permitted to say that. What was the situation that resulted in a decision to move them down south?
How was that better?
I don’t know what other answer I could provide.
All we know is that, according to our policies, we consider that to be a better move than the way it was.
So I understand it then that while they were in that home in Iqaluit that things were not running according to par and were not being looked after well. They were then sent south?
It has 6 children there. What transpired was that they were no longer being considered children but youth.
In order to think about their welfare in terms of what they would be become and so probably for that main reason that decision was made because.
And too, foster parents change. Some no longer continue to be foster homes.
There is a turnover. (interpretation ends) Four sets of foster parents, I believe, during the years that t was open.
That is what I was trying to get at.
When they become teenagers, how would them growing as teenagers in the south be considered better than growing to become a teenager up north?
The children that are sent south aren’t sent south permanently. They are not exiled. They are able to come back to the north.
However, if there are no placements for them in the north then discussions take place as to finding solutions for them.
I think that we have been misunderstood that we sent children south just like that at the drop of a hat.
Let me then frame my question thusly.
The children you sent home, even though you endeavoured not to send them home, they seem to have sufficient places here in the foster homes up here. And yet they were sent south.
Was that better for the children and better for the parents?
Chairman: Minister Ugyuk.
Some of them go back to their parents.
Anyone of the children or people in foster care can go back to their real parents.
Mr. Enook (interpretation): When can they return home?
We heard not too long ago that half of those children in foster homes have agreed to it by way of agreements. If there are provisions that state when the child should be returned or adult then that would be followed.
Mr. Enook (interpretation): So then now I understand that some of the people can be foster parents and some could be sent back home and then some are sent south.
Why do they no longer reside in group homes?
What were the reasons? How do you determine who is going to be ending up where?
Maybe I could ask the director in charge to answer this since that is his area of responsibility.
Each child has a plan of care created for them and it looks at the whole range of needs that I mentioned earlier in order to ensure how those needs can be met here in Nunavut and, if those needs cannot be met in Nunavut, where and what kind of services are required.
Let me just assure the member that the issue in terms of decision for children to be placed outside of the territory only occurs after very careful consideration of what that child’s needs are, whether the child’s needs can be met here in Nunavut and, if they can’t be, then what other kind of services and supports do they need and for what period of time.
I find it hard to understand and perhaps I may never understand since I may never receive an answer, which is when they were just fine and dandy in this place, and then suddenly, the next time you wake up, the department says, “We’ve got to send them out.”
I just can’t understand what prompted the department to decide that the place in Iqaluit had to close.
No one in our department has said that the place in Iqaluit was terrible.
That is the way I can answer my colleague.
We are always trying to look for best practices. We don’t use worst practices, but best practices, and that was why the decision was made by our department.
I have been answering the MLA so many times and I don’t know how better I can frame the same answer.
Mr. Enook (interpretation): Mr. Chairman, it’s because I don’t believe that the department’s move is better if I am coming from Pond Inlet and if I have a child residing here.
There were parents with children who were residing here.
Some of them go to meetings or go to hospital visits. Once in a while, they were able to visit their children and see them.
I’m not interested in finding out who the parents were.
However, if you send the children down south, how is it better for the parents?
This affects our department, so I refuse to answer it.
Mr. Enook (interpretation): Maybe if I ask it this way, Mr. Chairman.
Any child is brought into a foster plan and that person would have a boss in Nunavut, and there are foster people in Nunavut, is it better for that child and the parents if the child is sent to the south?
I don’t know if it is better for the parents and children. I don’t know how to answer that. It is up to the parents as to how they feel.
We are trying to do the best for the child. More than half of these clients were sent south through an agreement.
They don’t just get sent down there.
The foster people and the parents meet regularly.
Do I understand correctly, your department has not checked to see if the new situation is better than what they left behind in the group home here?
That’s the same question he has been asking over and over.
We are trying to use the best practice model.
If you put a child in an institution it’s known in the best practice model that when the child becomes an adult the child is not close to his kin. We only place children mostly through voluntary service agreements.
It is the parents that agree in the first place that the person with custody of the child.
Mr. Enook (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) With all due respect (interpretation) I keep asking the same question because you haven’t responded to it.
You haven’t answered it.
I would like an answer. That’s why I keep repeating the same question.
If you answered the question right away then we could move onto something else.
Apparently they understand that these young people… when kids stay together in a group home, as they reach adulthood then that is wrong. It seems like one of your staff said some of the kids have been sent to institutions down south.
Now how is that good when the same situation was bad in Nunavut?
The children that are sent out have physical disabilities.
We want to make sure that they are cared for properly. That is why it was done.
I still don’t understand why is it that when they were in an institution in the group home and you just said it’s no good for them to grow up in a group home. What is the difference between the two? Why is it good down there and bad up here if they grow up in an institution?
You are the chairman. Please keep track of the meeting.
I will get Mr. Simon Awa to respond to it.
I will have just a brief explanation.
There was planning done as to how to use that group home. That planning had started previously.
When the Department of Family Services became a department it took it over. They implemented the plan that had been started earlier.
I can say that we are not talking about something very bad.
People who stayed at the group home or other people that were in other foster homes. We are trying to do the best for them, the best care for them. That is always our intention.
And also for their relatives.
That is always our intention. Let us be aware that we are always giving them an opportunity or a chance, if a person is from Nunavut if that person needs care and that care is outside of the territory, we make sure that the parents and the family get an opportunity to go see their children.
We can help them in that regard.
Probably twice a year we can bring the relatives down to go see those children in the south. It doesn’t matter where the children are. If it’s in Nunavut, then the parents are sent to see the children twice a year, in Nunavut and down south.
Before we proceed, minister you stated earlier. I just want to make sure you wanted to make sure something about the chairman.
You are controlling or facilitating the meeting. The way I understand that question was posed practically 10 times.
I find it impossible to answer it in any other way. I can only respond by telling the truth. That is what I have been doing.
I would like to say during question period the Members of the Legislative Assembly are allowed to ask questions within their allotted time. When a Member of the Legislative Assembly is asking questions and asks the same question many times.
If you don’t respond to that question and if you do not want to answer the question you just say you don’t want to answer the question.
It isn’t the fact that we want to keep asking questions. It’s just the fact that normal people in Nunavut want answers.
As you were just told, if you do not want to answer then you don’t have to answer.
If you don’t have to answer then you have to face the fact that you don’t want to respond to the people of Nunavut it’s entirely up to you if you don’t want to respond.
Let me ask again. And the Deputy Minister, Mr. Awa, I totally agree with his comments. We are all trying to do the best for the children and that’s what we are supposed to do for the people that we represent in Nunavut.
I totally completely agree with that. I’ve never disagreed with that.
The only thing I disagree with is why are we going there?
Inuit, especially Inuit in Nunavut, we have been taught by our elders that family is very important. Families have to stay close together and work together.
Whenever families, relatives are together we are always told it is the best thing.
How can I be made to understand? How can I understand why that child sent to the south is going to benefit family relationships? How can I understand?
How will that support or help family relationships? How can it be better for the family relationship?
The child and the parents are helped by the social worker.
Before we proceed further, let’s take a 15 minute break.
D-5. (interpretation) Following my list of names, Mr. Savikataaq.
I would like to ask the minister how the government’s document, Inuit societal values, has changed anything or if it has, I know it’s a recent document, but has it changed how they deal with children and family?
I’ll have Deputy Minister Simon Awa respond to the question about Inuit societal values.
Likewise, within our government departments, we’re facing challenges in incorporating Inuit societal values within our programs and services. We face the same challenges as the other departments. Sometimes it’s very difficult to incorporate Inuit societal values into legislation and into the policies.
I am very pleased to announce… . I’ll use an example. It goes through the court and they make a decision through the court that they need to use Inuit societal values within the courts when they start dealing with Inuit and social issues.
With that, we work very hard to incorporate Inuit societal values and we’re continuing to work on that.
Mr. Savikataaq: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation) Let me ask the minister then: when a couple has to go through the court system to resolve their dispute or sometimes they are separated.
According to Inuit societal values, it states that Inuit have to remain together and not separate.
Can the minister tell us which one they’re using, either or?
I thank the member from Arviat, Mr. Savikataaq, for asking that question in regard to the courts.
Perhaps the justice minister can respond to the question.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you very much. Mr. Okalik, if you would like to respond, please say yes or no.
I’m not available to respond to that question.
I’m not at the witness table so therefore I did not prepare myself for that question.
That is understandable.
I guess we will leave societal values behind because I’m not sure if they are being followed.
On another matter, I have been told by some of my constituents that if a person is suicidal and they go to a social worker they are told that it is not the social worker’s job and they have to go to the nurses. Is that true?
Social workers have a policy on the procedure and the administration.
The nurses have authority to deal with them and if the social worker is not authorized or certified to deal with emergency cases or critical cases because there is policy. That is why they can do it.
Mr. Savikataaq: Seek more clarity then. Social workers do not deal with suicidal patients.
If it’s critical and if it’s vital that they can request.
It’s very difficult to find out what state of mind the individuals.
But if there is a patient with mental illness there is a mental health worker in some communities that they can take on that responsibility. It’s their responsibility to deal with that kind of issue.
At least I would appreciate it if they can go to the mental health worker.
Mr. Savikataaq
Mr. Savikataaq: Suicide is as big problem in our territory and my understanding now is that social workers do not deal with suicidal people because they don’t have the training.
But these suicidal people are sent to the nursing station probably most nurses don’t have that training either unless they have a mental health specialist or a psychiatric nurse.
The social workers, if there is an emergency case they have a policy that there is a process for them to follow.
Sometimes there are psychiatric nurses placed in some communities.
If an individual is seeking help I have no idea if there is ever a case where they are denied but I would like to have Peter Dudding respond further.
To add to the minister’s response, it would be a normal part of good social work practice and part of the ethical responsibility of any of our staff if a person presents in front of them with suicidal behaviour or suicidal ideation that as the minister has pointed out, in terms of dealing with the emergency, they would deal with the immediacy of that situation.
But as the minister has also correctly pointed out, part of their professional responsibility then would be to make a referral to mental health services in order to ensure that that person got the care that they required from properly qualified professionals.
I’ll ask the minister.
When is it not an emergency when a person is suicidal?
Those questions are posed to the social worker. The social worker asks what the client is thinking, but according to the way the client responds, then they can make a decision.
It’s under the Mental Health Program. Those individuals take care of suicidal people. I believe that’s where the misunderstanding occurs.
On a different matter but same subject, that mental health facility here by the high school, how many residents can stay in there? What’s the capacity of that place?
The Minister of Health can respond to that as to what the capacity is for that facility.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you very much. (interpretation ends) Minister Ell, are you prepared to answer the question, yes or no?
Although I have the information, I’m having difficulty finding it, so if you can be patient and wait a moment.
Chairman (interpretation): Yes, we can wait.  Thank you very much.
Hon. Monica Ell (interpretation): Thank you for your patience.
The building’s name is Akausisarvik, the mental health centre here in Iqaluit, which was recently renovated. There are 16 beds and one-third of beds are being utilized, and the other one-third for long-term care patients.
The first one that I mentioned earlier is that some of these beds are used for short-term patients and some of the beds are allotted for long-term use for clients who don’t have a place to go, even though they are ready to leave the facility.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you very much for your response.
I would like to remind my colleagues that we finished our review of the Department of Health.
I apologize for that. I thought that that was under the same heading as a group home.
My apologies for asking on that.
On another matter here, on page 115 of your business plan, the third bullet from the bottom says, “Continue to implement and seek out resources to support the residential care work plan to improve residential services case management, and contract management, including family based care development in Nunavut.”
Can the minister explain what that means?
I will get Mr. Dudding to respond to the question. He deals with that Akausisarvik.
With the creation of the Department of Family Services in April 2013 we undertook an imitative around the residential care action plan. The purposes of the action plan were to improve the quality of care provided to the children and adults who were in our care, to better manage the costs related to those individuals as well as to improve the outcomes for the persons who were receiving service.
Part of that residential care action plan has been to, as I referenced to earlier questions, the creation of the placement planning review committee process to really look across the territory at individual plans of care for all persons who were coming to our attention around placement planning.
With regard to the contract management is to ensure that all of the facilities reviews and the updates around ensuring good quality of care are part of the contracts as we go forward in order to ensure that we are getting the best quality care for the money provided.
With respect to the third item, on family based care development in Nunavut, picking up on the sentiment of this Legislative Assembly which is not new with respect to doing a better job around the creation and the development of foster care and alternative family care and other services and supports for persons who require care here in Nunavut.
Just a clarification. Is Home Care under Family Services or Health?
Minster Ugyuk.
With respect to the home care dealt with by the Department of Health but I know that the service that is going to be provided to Nunavut is done by the Department of Health.
On the same page, the second bullet to do with the Auditor General’s Report it says, “develop and beginning to implement an action plan to respond to recommendations from the 2013 Auditor General’s follow-up report on child, youth, and family services in Nunavut.”
When can we see this plan being tabled in the House?
The Auditor General of Canada will… from the recommendation by the Auditor General… Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Some of the questions that were asked to the minister for people that need care in the southern institution. When they don’t have a place to go in Nunavut, if there is no care facility here in Nunavut because we know that there are rooms in those care facilities.
For people who need long-term care or those who need care because they don’t really know what to do, who looks after those care facilities?
Is it done by the Nunavut government or is it federal funding?
For a good answer, I would like to get Mr. Dudding to respond to that question.
With regard to residential care facilities in Nunavut, there are both facilities that are contracted by the Department of Family Services and they are all run by persons who had responded to a request for proposals to operate those programs on our behalf. For example, there are three elders facilities in Nunavut that are run under contract for the department.
In addition to that, to kind of give fullness of an answer to the member, there are other residential care facilities that are run by our colleagues in the Department of Health as well.
I’m talking about individuals who need to stay in a care facility, the ones who are not quite adult yet.
Although there are places such as those that… .
For the ones who are down south in care facilities, do they have Inuit employees?
From what I understand, it is done by the provinces and licensed by the provinces, and we don’t operate them and their employees are not our employees.
That’s all I can say to answer the member.
The people of Nunavut would be very concerned if there are no Inuit employees in those facilities and they send those people who only speak Inuktitut down south to be cared for.
When you bring Inuit clients down south who speak Inuktitut and the workers don’t understand them, then their culture is lost.
Has this been considered when you’re sending Inuit children down south? Their food is quite different.
Do you find out whether this could be done properly?
The services are run by the provinces and we look at what kinds of services they provide.
I have seen and heard at times that some of them make telephone calls to their family members.
Even though they are down south, they can speak with their family members on the telephone.
That’s a good question and suggestion, and we will look into it again.
Mr. Mapsalak (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the member for her answer.
Because that is the case.
This is just a comment but I have seen and I have thought about this must be very hard for those individuals who have to be sent down south.
I just wanted to make sure that the government reviews the situation that I stated that there has to be somebody from Nunavut and probably that has been requested, too, as well.
Just a comment but do you have any comment to the member’s comments?
I will get Mr. Dudding to respond to the comments that the member made.
It’s an important comment and let me assure the member that part of that individual plan of care, whether it’s a child or whether it’s an adult, part of that plan of care includes their cultural component in order to ensure that the cultural part of their lives is both respected and promoted wherever they are.
For example, we have an excellent relationship in the Ottawa area with the Ottawa Inuit Children’s Centre. Of course in Ottawa we are fortunate in terms of having the largest population of Nunavummiut outside of Nunavut. It’s an excellent centre where both the care providers as well as the children have regular exposure to their culture, to their language, to their country food and to the other practices that we know are so important.
According to the list that I have, Mr. Akoak.
We talked about how important social workers are and we do need them and how important they are to the people of Nunavut, especially the smaller communities.
I’m just wondering if a social worker steps out of line is there a procedure that you follow to discipline them?
Any employee, when they get found out that they have not done very well in their job they would be looked at by the Ethics Officer.
Social workers work with people who need help. I think sometimes that they don’t help the people.
How can a client if he has a client, what does that person have to do to get help?
Hon. Jeannie Ugyuk (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) Each social worker has an assigned supervisor.
The supervisor is supposed to do fact finding if there is an incident and go from there.
Mr. Akoak: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. on a different topic, you have family violent services. I think we talked a little bit about it.
If this many individual and group counseling… is counseling provided by your department or do you get elders or somebody in the community to get involved?
We are dealing with Family Services.
As a department, we will be looking at reviewing the departmental activities to see how the operation could be improved across the board, whether the services be for children or adults. We will be looking at the various services that our department provides. That is what I can answer the MLA from Gjoa Haven.
Following my list of names, Mr. Hickes.