EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
With that $200,000 specifically, it’s just to deal with any capital improvements as needed, so technically it’s for all of them.
The other question I have relates to the money that is supposed to be used to help health committees in the amount of $250,000.
What are they allowed to use the money for once it has been transferred to the communities?
I’m asking that question for clarification.
Again I thank the member for raising that issue. It’s a very important one.
It provides some core funding to the wellness committees in each community in the amount of $10,000 for each community. In addition to that, again as we roll out our grants and contributions policy through the Quality of Life Secretariat, there is also $2.8 million available for community-led initiatives on mental wellness and community wellness.
We want to make sure that they have that core funding so that they can make sure that the capacity is there to promote or continue existing programs that they may have initiated previously.
It’s not specific for one type of project. Communities have a lot of flexibility with those dollars to make sure that it can be used as they see fit. Additional funds are available, which will likely be a proposal-based basis.
People sometimes get sick in our communities, whether they are young, adults, or elders, and some of them can speak English while others can’t.
What I would like to understand better is: if an Inuk elder can speak in English, for example, and that person is 65 years or older, if that person is sick, would that person be ineligible for an escort?
I don’t know if I’m coming across clear.
What I’m trying to say is: can a medical escort be provided even if a sick person is able to speak in English?
The policy is designed to make sure that unilingual elders are provided with an escort.
With the circumstance that the member raises with a bilingual elder, it would totally depend upon the care needs.
There are other parameters of whether escorts are deemed necessary or not for mental and physical needs:
If there is any information that needs to be shared with other people from the client to make sure that care at home needs to continue;
If there is legal consent by a guardian that would be needed if they were under a type of trusteeship where somebody was a guardian over them;
Like I said, if they have a mental or physical condition that would prevent them from travelling without assistance;
If an escort is required for the client to participate in the treatment program or needs to receive instructions on specific and essential home, medical or nursing procedures that cannot be given to the client alone; and in addition to that,
If the client has a clinical medical need.
It depends upon what the person is travelling down for.
Typically if it’s just, as the member mentioned, a bilingual elder that is going down that doesn’t fit those other parameters, then they would not have an escort provided.
The minister’s response is very clear.
I would like to say further that I can speak in English but not fluently.
I have a partner who is very knowledgeable about health matters and a lot of Inuit are like that.
That’s what I wanted to say to the minister.
I said that was going to be my final question, but I think this will be my final question.
When you’re dealing with medical issues, I don’t envy you and I’m proud of you. We know it’s very challenging to deal with.
Looking at the future for the smaller communities, they cannot get jet service and when someone needs urgent medical attention, how can a faster plane be sent to pick up that patient?
Has that been considered for the future?
I would just like to touch briefly upon the member’s comment before his question.
There also is an appeals policy that is available.
If people feel that an escort is warranted, there is an appeals process that they can attempt to justify the reasoning behind providing an escort.
I do want to remind members, as I mentioned yesterday as I got some questions from the member from Sanikiluaq, again, Health is coming to the legislature for a supplementary appropriation and a big chunk of that is medical travel.
We don’t get any assistance for providing medical travel to escorts. That is strictly on the government’s dime.
We do have to make sure that we have guidelines and policies to follow. It’s challenging.
I can speak from experience.
Since I have been sitting in this chair, I’ve had to substantiate and defend the department’s decision to deny escorts. I know that people want to be with their loved ones when they’re travelling for medical reasons.
We do have to have lines drawn and policies developed to make sure that we’re also keeping accountable to the taxpayer, the general resident of the territory, and to this Assembly for the costs that we incur.
I did just want to mention that from the member’s comment.
With regard specifically to the type of aircraft that is used for travel, the RFPs that we put out for emergency medevac travel have specific types of aircraft listed in there.
Sometimes due to necessity, one aircraft may not be available where they will have to go down the line, but typically they are under the understanding that in all cases they use the fastest transport available at the time.
It is something that we keep aware of, especially when we come up for RFP negotiations and discussions with Community and Government Services. Within our own procurement we want to make sure that we’re getting the best aircraft available at the time for the services that we need.
We rely upon aviation experts to provide guidance in that.
Mr. Tom Sammurtok: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, minister and your staff.
Before I actually go into my questions here, on page 3 of your opening comments, the last paragraph and the second bullet there it reads, “Management of a grants and contributions program for community-led solutions called Upigivagitsi Grants and Contributions Program.”
I am somewhat confused as to what that word means, “Upigivagitsi.”
It’s the first time I have ever heard it. Maybe the minister can clarify that since it’s in all of his documents here.
I have been informed that the interpretation is “to rise up.”
Mr. Tom Sammurtok: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s the first time I have ever seen it and it’s the first time I have ever heard it.
Be that as it may, for that particular program, I’ll probably have a fairly long preamble here. However, for the benefit of our constituents out there, I just want to understand what this program is all about.
It’s under your Quality of Life Secretariat.
I’ll read your business plan description of what this program is. “This Contribution Program allows community and wellness organizations to operate healing groups, bereavement support groups, on the land healing programs, means restriction, after school leadership programs and other community lead initiatives for suicide prevention, intervention and post-vention, mental wellness and resiliency.
It also allows for suicide prevention planning, community-led research, training, professional development and self-care.”
According to your draft 2017-18 business plan, as I just read, it’s meant to be a contribution program for community wellness organizations.
Can you describe how organizations will be assisted in planning suicide prevention programs and apply for funding under this program, and who will decide which applications receive funding?
I realize that’s two questions there.
I appreciate the member’s question. It’s a very important one and I have touched on it a little bit earlier in the proceedings, but it gives me an opportunity to really narrow the focus on it.
Part of the monies that we have allocated in that budget is to help develop the capacity to be able to assist the communities in their initiatives.
The other portion is strictly for grants and contributions to direct fund organizations, not just community wellness groups but potentially other organizations that can apply for funds that would put on suicide prevention programming.
With specifics to the grants and contributions policy, as I had mentioned earlier, we’re in the final stages of that, so I don’t have the details on exactly who and how the approval process will be, but it is very near completion.
As soon as I get that, I will inform members so that they can inform their communities on how to access those funds.
Under the same Quality of Life Secretariat, you also have what’s called, and I understand this is a fairly new program, a mobile trauma response program.
According to your draft 2017-18 business plan, a mobile trauma response program will operate to provide care, counselling, and healing to Inuit communities and Inuit language clients.
Can you provide further detail on how this program will operate, where it will be based, and how it will be determined when to send a mobile trauma response team to a community and when to provide services by telephone?
I’ll do my best to answer this without having to swap out a witness. I thought we had most of the Quality of Life questions out of the way, so I switched witnesses with me today.
I do have my associate deputy minister of the Quality of Life Secretariat on standby here, but I’ll do my best to answer the question that the member posed.
You may recall the member to my left brought up the issue in Qikiqtarjuaq where recently the mobile response unit went in. He was acknowledging the success and impact it had on the community.
In the recent inquest in Igloolik we sent in members from the mobile trauma response team to assist any counselling needs that needed to be addressed.
With specifics on how they’re requested, that can come from a number of different options.
It can come from the hamlet or municipality. It can come from the mental health workers that currently exist in the community.
It can come from the health centre or it can come from other community organizations that feel the need due to a recent occurrence of a situation that may deem necessary to bring in further support to deal with any counselling or trauma needs in the community.
There are a number of different avenues that that can be addressed.
We do have it rolled out in the Baffin region right now. Like I said, it has been very active. I believe it has just been recently established in the Kivalliq and it’s in the process of being established in the Kitikmeot.
I’m seeing my side witness nodding her head, so I’m getting it right.
We have seen very high success in the impact that these trauma response units are having. It’s in the opinion of the department and me personally that it’s a really good utilization of services that, instead of having so many more counsellors in a community, we can have a specific group that is used to dealing with these types of issues that can go in right away to deal with an issue in a community where something has occurred that again it deems where we need to inundate that community with counsellors due to whatever traumatic event is occurring. Face-to-face counselling is important for sure, but we also have Inuktitut toll-free counselling lines that people can call for support and even for follow-up support.
Right now in Rankin Inlet they’re partnering with the Pulaarvik Kablu Friendship Centre. In the member’s home community we have already established a mobile trauma response team there and we’re looking at rolling it out to the Kitikmeot in the very near future as well. Like I said and I’ll repeat again, we’ve had very good success.
That’s why it was kind of a pilot, but we’re rolling it out we have seen such dramatic success with it.
With a lot of the counsellors being trained in the Clyde River facility, it has been very advantageous to the communities that they have participated in this.
I would like to welcome Minister George Hickes.
I thank you for being in charge of a large responsibility, and I welcome your officials to the committee.
Normally I don’t like to bring up an issue again, but I wish to ask for clarification on this particular one.
Suicide is a very important issue in the communities and we have said as we sit here that it should be addressed as a very urgent issue.
My colleague to my left asked for support in his remarks, Mr. David Joanasie.
The issue of ending one’s own life is important and is based on a number of reasons.
Have you reached any conclusion on the factors that lead to suicide?
What causes people to give up on living and end their lives?
That is my first question Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It’s not easy to define specific triggers. There are a number of different studies, statistics, and different analyses.
An example recently, we had a member of our Quality of Life Secretariat visit Arctic Bay and spoke to a number of residents there. It was determined that a healing circle would be advantageous for people to be able to talk about some of the past traumas and issues. That’s something that we’re looking at setting up and funding a healing circle in Arctic Bay.
The member himself has raised past historical traumas, residential schools, and a number of different things that have led people to have challenges in parenting, which creates challenges for the children on how to cope with adversity and break-ups of relationships.
I think one of the best things we can do for our youth specifically is work to give them the coping skills to be able to challenge adversity so that if something doesn’t go their way, they will turn and face it and challenge it versus considering suicide as an option to escape.
It’s an all-consuming battle. There’s no specific occurrence that we can identify.
There are a number of different issues. That’s, again, where we work with the communities. Each community needs to decide on what specific programming needs to be addressed to deal with any common occurrences on reasons.
I know I have lost family members to suicide as well. Sometimes there’s just no answer.
I know we focus a lot on youth, but there are also people from different age demographics that resort to suicide that we need to address those concerns as well.
I hope I answered the member’s question.
Yes, it is a difficult question to answer because I know a troubled child is in pain as well as their father and that can further contribute to the child’s pain.
When a child is not raised properly, they feel pain and, when they turn into adults, their pain becomes a source of anger.
There are indeed a number of reasons why an individual would choose to end their life.
That being the case, I was happy to hear your response regarding how Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit must be recognized within this department, which I constantly call for.
This is why healing during counselling is very important.
You stated that the people who are working at Ilisaqsivik are receiving training on counselling techniques, which I am very pleased to see, but there’s always a “but” in there.
We have counsellors that are qualified in modern terms.
For example, Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit is still dormant.
Isn’t the Inuit way of counselling a part of the programming at Ilisaqsivik?
I would like clarification on that first of all.
I think maybe it’s kind of an error on our part of how we’re explaining this. IQ in counselling is intermeshed with all of our programs.
That’s where we’re getting the guidance from the communities on how they feel that the counselling and how the programming needs to be focused to make sure that we’re dealing with the immediate need as well as the long-term need.
When we look at the Inuit Counsellors’ Training and Mentorship Program, we work with local people. We have partnered with Ilisaqsivik to provide the Inuit counsellor training and mentorship, but we also focus that counselling on Inuit language, culture, values, traditions, and heritage. We currently have two health staff that have successfully completed all four phases of the training to receive their certificates.
We look at peer support. We look at people that can take a look at intercommunity, like you said, people that may not be professionally trained counsellors but have that ability to counsel. They can work with the community wellness coordinator together to enhance the programming that is available.
We’re going to take a look at any and all options that we can provide; what people request.
We’re not here to put up barriers. We’re not here to limit the type of focus. We’ve had a lot of discussions with Culture and Heritage to make sure that we’re navigating and coordinating through different counselling programs.
We want to make sure that mental health and addictions staff are sent to Ilisaqsivik so that they can understand from the clinical side as well as from the cultural side.
When I talk about meshing clinical and traditional knowledge together, that’s where we’re going to see the most benefit.
When we have Inuit that are trained counsellors and we have clinically trained counsellors working side by side, they’re going to learn from each other and they’re going to be able to enhance each other’s role moving forward in all of their counselling methods.
I think we’re not doing a good enough job maybe saying because it’s so immersed and inundated. Everything that we’re looking at is taking culture and history into consideration.
I’ll elaborate further on this.
I’m happy that Inuit can be involved.
I will tell you about my own experience from the past.
Even though there was a mental health worker, there were times when there were none.
I’m not against this, but this presents a problem in Nunavut.
We were not even aware of mental health when I was a child, but we need to talk about it now. I’m not critical of anyone, but it needs to be addressed and that is the smoking of cannabis and the consumption of drugs.
When people receive these substances, they start selling them to others. It has reached the point where they seriously need help.
I reached a point where I had to flee from my own home and so I approached the RCMP and social services.
I was told that they cannot help me.
The person who was doing this to me had to ask for help himself before he could get help.
Why couldn’t I get help?
I was in bad health and it was impossible to be home.
I was never happy about this situation.
I would like you to make progress in your jobs.
I was told it is only if I am physically assaulted that they could help me.
That hurts!
According to Inuit culture, once somebody is found to need help, an experienced person is able to counsel them.
According to law now, it’s only when I am physically assaulted that I can finally receive help.
There are other people in Nunavut who go through the same experience.
When that’s the case, I fully support you and encourage you to do more work and to make funding available for the smaller communities to get healers and mental health workers.
There are easier cases that don’t take very much time, but if you make funding available for healers and mental health workers and once they get help and provide addictions services, that’s the way it can be improved and I encourage that.
It’s just a comment that I wanted to put out there. I just wanted to ask if you can clarify if you will allocate funding for this. The issues of drugs cause a lot of pain and are addictive.
Can you provide funding for such things?
It’s really hurtful when people get addicted to cannabis and drugs.
How can this be lessened?
I know it’s difficult.
I’m listening.
There are more and more options that are becoming available.
The challenge is that at some point the individual that needs counselling needs to recognize that they need counselling.
Now, that can be assisted. Families can speak to counsellors themselves and help get involved in the treatment of the person that needs counselling.
The member talks about drugs and alcohol and I talked earlier about statistics.
One of the statistics that has always jumped out at me is, and I can’t remember the exact number, but when somebody does commit suicide, there’s a large percentage of the time that they are under the influence of something and likely would not have taken that dramatic step if they were not under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
That’s something that we’re always working with, with our education and, again, with our community wellness groups to make sure that there’s a focus on people learning how to consume alcohol appropriately, to stay away from drugs, binge drinking, and bad habits with those types of substances.
I am listening to the member and I know all my officials are.
That’s what we’re working towards, to make sure that whenever somebody needs help, whether it be a family member or the person directly, there are supports that are able to be provided in the community as much as possible to be able to assist the family through scenarios like what happened to the member where a family would be able to seek counselling on behalf of that person. Maybe together they could coordinate an approach to help identify that person and recognizing that they need help.
I hope that’s sufficient.
I also thank the minister. I want to understand more clearly for myself and the listening audience, so I thank you for that.
In your business plan for 2017, it’s my understanding that this will be fully implemented in 2018 for the communities.
The smaller communities go through more challenges.
As the minister, before our term has ended, I urge you to implement these programs to provide more assistance for counselling for smaller communities. Housing is also usually a problem.
There are some elders who are trained in this field.
Can you utilize those elders more? Can you get their help in providing addictions counselling services in the smaller communities?
With the start of the contribution agreement through the Quality of Life, it’s going to help provide funding to the community groups, sometimes the community wellness groups or other organizations.
Again, with the collaboration from the capacity that is being developed within Quality of Life, I hope that there’s always some component of that of any project that comes forward that is inclusive for elders and the experiences and value that they can add to almost any discussion.
Again, these are all community-led proposals that we want to see so that people know in their community who can assist, what elders or even what youth are good role models that we can help promote healthy living in all of our communities, absolutely.
Before I ask a question to Minister Hickes, I would like to thank you and Ms. Stockley. You are aware that in the past winter I have approached you more than once to tell you about somebody who I think definitely needs help.
I appreciate that you did everything that you could to provide assistance.
I have one question and I’ll have more questions as we go through the pages.
On page 120 of your business plan in English and page 128 in Inuktitut, I think I can ask this question under H-4 as it’s included on that page.
One of the priorities for 2016-17 is to “Develop health professions umbrella legislation to allow for the regulation of multiple health professions currently not regulated in Nunavut.”
My question is under the status which states that “This initiative has been deferred.”
I would just like to know why you identified it as a priority and then deferred it.
I think this is a question that I really appreciate because it is something as a regular member that I fought for as well. There are professions that we don’t have full regulation under our legislation right now.
There has been work that has been ongoing on it. Unfortunately it didn’t make the legislative process for this government.
I can assure the member that it will be ready to go in the winter of 2018 when the new government comes into place.
I would anticipate it would be quite a discussed piece of legislation because there are 12 different professions that are listed in it.
It’s a cumbersome piece of legislation, but it’s a very important piece of legislation. I can assure the member that it will be “ready to rock.”
We’re down to the group’s second round of questioning. Ms. Angnakak.
I don’t think I’m going to be too long. Well, I don’t think so anyways, depending on the answers.
I do want to get into the finances a little bit. Since April 1, 1999 the Legislative Assembly has approved $373,852,302 in appropriation just for health.
That’s a big number.