Health and Social Services Minister Lesa Semmler again faced questions about complaints from community residents placed at a certain Yellowknife hotel for medical travel.
Mackenzie Delta MLA George Nerysoo reminded the Minister that he stood in the NWT one year ago to raise the same concerns over the downtown Quality Inn expressed to him by medical travel patients. He raised the issue again last fall.
“Patients who travel to Yellowknife are indeed not receiving quality service in terms of accommodations. Residents of my riding are stating that they are being treated like second-or third-class citizens by this very their very own government,” he said in the Assembly on Tuesday.
“Every time the concern of quality in comes before the Minister and her department, they do not have a concrete solution. Maybe the solution is out there in the communities and with its residents.
“Personally, I’m running out of questions to ask the Minister and her department as to why our Indigenous population is subject to these deplorable conditions.”
The medical travel contract is held by Det’on Cho Management, which operates the 31-room Keskorie Boarding Home at the entrance to Old Town.
The boarding home is responsible for finding alternative rooms when the boarding home is full. Medical travel has increased in recent years years, mostly due to a lack of dental services in the smaller communities.
Minister Semmler noted she also raised similar concerns when she was a Regular MLA in the 19th Assembly.
A Wardair Bristol 170 Freighter. (Photo courtesy of Airhistory.net/McIntyre Collection)
But she admitted the problem still persists, although efforts are now made to use other hotels if Keskorie is full.
Meanwhile, Tu Nedhé-Wiilideh MLA Richard Edjericon brought up the 55-year-old crash at Łutsël K’é of a Wardair Freighter a few metres from the shoreline.
Records show that on final approach to Lutselk’e Airport in May, the 15-year-old Bristol 170 Freighter crashed onto an icy Great Slave Lake. There were no fatalities.
The MLA asked Environment Minister Jay Macdonald who is responsible for the cleanup of the wreckage, as it still poses a threat to the local waters.
Minister Macdonald noted there are many instances where industrial junk remains in the NWT, with a number of governments, companies or agencies ultimately responsible for cleanup.
As the aircraft wreckage is in a waterway and Wardair its no longer in business, the remains of the aircraft would need to be removed by the federal government.
Dechinta executive director Kelsey Wrightson. (Photo by Morgan Tsetta; courtesy of Wrightson)
And with the impending closure of Aurora College’s Community Learning Centres, Yellowknife North MLA Shauna Morgan noted the good work the Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning is doing.
“Yesterday, I was talking about how adult education should not be treated as a remedial program that highlights someone’s failures to graduate from high school,” she said.
“Instead, it can be transformative, and that’s exactly what Dechinta is trying to do. Beyond individual literacy, beyond even family-based literacy, this is community-based literacy in action. The learning semesters involve everyone together, out in the land. You have adult students along with elders and even children’s programs alongside them.”
She acknowledged Dechinta doesn’t replace the need for other post-secondary options, but “is a gateway for adults to build confidence that they do belong in post-secondary learning and they don’t need to leave culture, community and traditional knowledge behind to gain further education.”
Education Minister Caitlin Cleveland praised the hard work done by Dechinta executive director Kelsey Wrightson and said the process is underway on a multi-year funding agreement between the GNWT and the school. She added Dechinta is also working towards private college status to make it eligible for research grants.
