Minutes - 2011-06-17 (June 17) - Health and Social Services

YUKON HEALTH & SOCIAL SERVICES COUNCIL 

(YH&SS) 

Minutes 

Meeting Date: June 17, 2011- 9.00 am – 4:20 pm 

Attending members: Kevin McDonnell, Maxwell Rispin, Peter Morawsky, 

Marie Martin, Marie Cox, Doug Kearns, Michael Nixon, Marnie Buyck. 

Regrets: Douglas MacPheat. 

Guest(s): (via tele/video conference) Brian Kitchen, Christine Paradis, 

Paula Pasquali, Jan Langford, Violet VanHees. 

Action Items are in Bold 

Agenda Item Decisions & Action / 

Next Steps / Process / Timing 

Person 

Responsible 

1) Call to Order 

Check-in 

Focus of Day 

Review & 

Approval of 

Agenda 

2) Action Items 

from March 4 th 

& 5 th Meetings 

• Template for 

Issue 

Investigation 

• No action items. 

• ACTION #2011-03-5a: 

• Formulating a problem definition and will 

forward to people to see where we’d like to go 

with the issue. 

• ACTION #2011-03-5b: 

• Website link from Wikipedia will be forwarded 

to Marnie in order to forward to everyone 

else. 

• ACTION #2011-03-5c: 

• Doug’s information notes will be sent to 

everyone (also found at Corp. Sec./Health 

Council Sec.’s desk). 


• Alison will confirm what YH&SS Council’s 

role is and how it can be involved and get 

• All 

• Completed 

• Completed 

• Completed 

• Completed



Person 

Responsible 

back to us. 


• Alison will send Marnie her presentation to 

forward to everyone (it can also be found at: 

abetteryukon.ca website). 

• ACTIONS #2011-03-7a: 

• Laird gave Marnie a copy of the presentation 

to forward to everyone. 

• ACTION #8a: 

• Invite will be sent to Paula and Jan for the 

next Council meeting – they will have the 

beginnings of what we can then work on with 

them. 

• If they have any information that they’d like to 

pass on before then, Marnie will forward to 

everyone. 


• Cynthia Lyslo will be invited to discuss 

H & SS Strategic Plan and do a presentation 

about it. 


• Draft Communication Strategy with changes 

will be forwarded to Council. 


• Sub committee to work on website update 

issues. 

• To begin with, subcommittee is to ask Pat and 

Roni-Sue Sparvier about the process to do 

changes to the website for the next meeting. 

• On the Gov’t of Yukon website for Boards & 

Committees add: “representatives from 

communities” for our YH&SS Council. 

• Ongoing Action Item: 

• Minutes will be sent within 2 weeks of 

meeting, Within 2 weeks of receipt of minutes, 

approval will be done via fax/email/phone by 

members. 

• YH&SS Council chair will arrange follow-up if 

a member identifies an issue requiring 

YH&SS Council discussion. 

• Minutes will be posted when all approvals are 

• Completed 

• Completed 

• Completed 

• Completed – 

unable to 

participate 

• To be worked 

on tomorrow 

• Completed- 

• Will 

continue 

using as is 

• Completed 

• Completed 

and ongoing 

• Ongoing 

• Completed



done – before the next YH&SS Council 

meeting occurs. 


• News Release promoting existence and 

encouraging public input will be done in near 

future (will be approved first by YH&SS 

Council via fax/email/phone). 


• Correspondence between Minister and 

Council will be posted on website now – 

starting from Oct. 21/10 and afterwards – see 

correspondence file. 

• ACTION #2011-03-14d: 

Advertisements: 

• Add website link to the announcements of 

meetings with theme of issues YH&SS 

Council is investigating; solicit public input 

and ways input can be provided. 

Person 

Responsible 

and ongoing 

• Completed 

• Completed 

• Completed 

• ACTIONS #2011-03 14e: 

Chair: 

1. Will finalize the communication strategy 

within 1 week. 

• To be worked 

on tomorrow 

2. Will send revised draft for comment via 

fax/email/phone to members. 

• Revise, finalize or do follow up based on 

input received from council on revised 

communication strategy. 

• ACTIONS #2011-03-15a: 

• Discussion and updated formulation of 

highlighted concerns and need for what the 

next steps are will be done and forwarded to 

members. 

• Decision as to how to approach it will be 

decided once formulation is reviewed via 

fax/email/phone by the members. 

• Completed 

• Completed 


• Discussion and updated formulation of 

highlighted concerns and for what the next 

steps are. 

• Completed



Person 

Responsible 

• ACTION #22011-03-16b: 

Three themes: 

• FASD, Harm Reduction Strategy, Health Care 

Sustainability problem formulation table 

needs to be reviewed now with additional 

notes once sent to members via 

fax/email/phone. 


• Ftp site: Kevin will use his ftp site for the 

documents from this meeting for now (shared 

drive through internet) Health Care Audit 

Report, Budget Strategic Plan will be 

forwarded to the members. 

• ACTION #2011-03-16d: 

• Ftp site for YH&SS Council – members only 

website for all the documents will be set up in 

the future. 


• When the agenda comes out, Max will forward 

it to the YH&SS Council so we can decide 

who will attend. 


• Chair to follow up with Doug Kearns about 

agenda items for Watson Lake meeting: 

Tour of the new hospital in Watson Lake 

and a possible presentation. 

Open mike to be provided as part of the 

meeting for the public to make 

comments/present ideas or concerns. 


• Communications will be done for the Watson 

Lake community. 

• Completed 

• Deferred - 

Kevin to 

follow-up 

with H&SS 

Communications 

unit. 

• Will be 

looked into 

furthercombine 

with 16c 

• Completed 

• Completed 

• Completed 

• Completed 

3) Health & 

Social Services 

Departmental 

Updates & 

Initiatives (Brian 

Kitchen, 

Brian Kitchen (Policy & Planning): 

‣ ACTION #2011-06-3a: 

Strategic Plan: YH&SS Council has been 

given the most recent Departmental Plan 

2011/2012. Kevin was given the link to the 5 

• Kevin and 

Marnie



Person 

Responsible 

Christine 

Paradis, Paula 

Pasquali, Jan 

Langford) 

year Strategic Plan and he will share with 

members. 

• The letter of undertaking from the Deputy 

Minister (DM) each year goes to the Premier: 

This outlines major priorities that the 

Deputy Minister will be held accountable 

for over the next year. 

This may change with new Premier. 

• Strategic Plan was started in 2008 – this was an 

intense process amongst the senior management 

team to create. 

• Government decided it wanted an annual 

reporting system put in place. Out of this also 

came the annual Departmental Plan. 

• The Strategic Plan doesn’t identify everything the 

department is doing. It only highlights the 

strategic initiatives seen as priorities for the 

department. 

• The Strategic Plan aligns with goals of the 

Government. 

• Plans will change as priorities change or other 

changes come about. 

• The Strategic Plan for the department will be 

influenced by the new Premier and the election in 

the fall. New priorities may come out as a result 

of these changes. 

‣ ACTION #2011-06-3b: 

• YH&SS Council will get the changes to the 

Strategic Plan/Departmental Plan as they 

happen. 

• Brian 

Departmental Updates: 

• Political changes and decisions are put on hold 

right now with the new Premier. 

• The Premier will meet with all DM’s to discuss 

each department’s priorities. Our DM and 

Minister will meet with him soon. 

• The Premier to be visiting the communities and 

First Nations this summer. 

Other Updates: 

• Some FPT (Federal/Provincial/Territorial) Deputy 

Ministers of Social Services committees that are 

currently active include: 

The Yukon Social Inclusion/Anti-Poverty



Person 

Responsible 

staff feed into the National Advisory 

Committee on Anti-Poverty Group. 

The Disability Advisory Committee - 

reviewing disability issues management. 

Children/Youth at Risk Advisory 

 

Committee. 

Once these committees start sharing 

information, the YH&SS Council will be 

informed so that they can be included on 

updates if they want. 

• The department continues with its work, but 

major decisions and projects are being put on 

hold until advised further from the Minister and 

Premier. 

• The Deputy Ministers of Health met in Ottawa 

recently (FPT Conference – 

Federal/Provincial/Territorial). 

Christine Paradis (Social Inclusion Strategy 

Initiatives & Priorities): 

• Allison presented a power point at the last 

meeting to discuss what Social Inclusion (SI) is 

and what are factors of Social Exclusion (I.e.: 

poverty). 

• The strategy allows us to focus on long term 

goals rather than quick “fix it” strategies. 

• A large symposium (public education) and a 

community tour were done to engage all front line 

workers and clients from the public and hear their 

concerns/issues. 

• Senior managers from all departments were met 

with to discuss how we can engage them. 

• In January 2011 a framework was created 

(vision, principles and themes) which includes the 

departments. 

• Since January, many delays have developed. 

The change of leadership has delayed progress 

and staffing issues in the unit as well. 

• The vision was moved forward to senior 

management and Cabinet and it is still under 

review. 

• The strategy has been forwarded to the new 

Premier, however; it will continue. 

• A meeting with the Community Advisory 

Committee (CAC) was held to update them and 

discuss the impact the strategy will have on the 

communities. 

• CAC will continue in their role but will also carry 

other roles to include this strategy. 

• Whse. Housing Adequacy Study was released in



Person 

Responsible 

2010. They received 750 responses to their 

questionnaire. This can be found on the H&SS 

website. 

• Dimensions of Social Inclusion & Exclusion were 

released in 2010. This was a major household 

survey in Yukon, related to indicators on social 

determinants of health. This is also on the 

website. 

• What We Heard Bridges and Barriers 2010 report 

will be going through Cabinet. It is internal right 

now for departments to use. In the fall, it is 

hoped to have this released. 

• Community engagement is being done. They are 

met with regularly and will continue to be in order 

to finalize the strategy. 

• The framework is being moved forward for 

Cabinet. It is based on the above-noted reports. 

• The Community Advisory Committee (CAC) will 

be involved for review and feedback. 

• Once the framework is approved by cabinet it 

goes to CAC as well as communications for 

review. 

• How do we get from where we are today to meet 

our goals and objectives? 

• Timelines for strategies will vary. 

• In the beginning of June DM’s and ADM’s 

attended workshops about the strategy. 

• The Minister gave advice to move forward and 

how to move forward on the strategy. 

• On July 7 th ADM’s, managers and directors are to 

meet to discuss and determine goals and 

strategies. 

• Vision (draft strategy) document will be flushed 

out with objectives in order to move forward. The 

Minister is supportive, even though it hasn’t been 

put through to Cabinet yet. 

• Does this fall under Wellness Strategy? Or are 

they each on their own? Indicators are slightly 

different. Wellness is prevention and promotion 

and involves children and families. 

• Social Inclusion is for all Yukoners, businesses, 

municipalities and First Nation governments. 

• It is the “lens” to filter all Yukon departments and 

to examine how we provide all the services to the 

less fortunate, keeping this strategy in mind. 

• In 2012/2013 there will be more activities added 

to the strategy. 

• In 2015, an evaluation will be put in place to 

review the strategies and see if we’ve made a 

difference/what needs to be done to move



Person 

Responsible 

forward. 

‣ ACTION: 2011-06-3c: 

• The internal document is okay to share – 

shows linkages between strategies and the 

differences. This will be emailed to Marnie 

and then distributed to members. 

• Christine and 

Marnie 

‣ ACTION: 2011-06-3d: 

• By the next YH&SS Council meeting, it is 

hoped to have the strategy all finalized and to 

have further updates. It is also hoped that SI 

will be able to advise on how YH&SS Council 

can continue to participate. 

• Christine and 

Marnie 

4) Issue 

Investigation Re: 

Health Care 

Sustainability 

(Brian Kitchen 

and Violet 

VanHees of Policy 

& Program 

Development) 

Issue Investigation: 

• YH&SS Council is concerned about sustainability 

of health care. 

• YH&SS Council would like to ensure that when 

issues are investigated, the department lets us 

know what things are being done. 

• The YH&SS Council will follow-up with H&SS 

when it is investigating an issue in order to 

determine what the department may be doing 

about it, and if it can provide relevant information. 

• Violet has worked on the Health Care Report for 

H&SS. 

• Prior to the discussion with the YH&SS Council, 

Brian met with ADM’s (Assistant Deputy 

Ministers) regarding the hypothesis and approach 

to inquiry/investigation done by YH&SS Council. 

• ADM’s viewed this as a huge undertaking but it is 

important to address this process and the issues 

so YH&SS Council can investigate them further. 

• There is the challenging issue of balancing the 

needs of the public and assignment of limited 

resources on the department’s side. 

• There are many good and important things to do 

but not enough money to do them all. 

• The Department is faced with the challenge of 

sustaining services that mean the most but must 

“live within their means.” Choices have to be 

made in a publicly funded system. 

• Question needs to be asked: what are the core 

services that we expect to have? Everything else 

becomes extra. 

• Differences between expectations and needs will 

differ for each person.



Person 

Responsible 

• Health system includes doctors, hospitals and 

nurses. They are included in Insured Health 

care. These legislative services have to happen. 

The left over money has to go to the nonlegislative 

services which are discretionary areas 

for the Department. 

• 2 years ago consultants were hired to review 

financially how to sustain health care. 

• A steering committee was formed to review 

Health Care Costs across Canada and what has 

happened in Yukon. 

• From that, came 43 possible actions on how we 

can manage changes. 

• This went to the Legislative Assembly and was 

debated for over two days. One result was that 

all parties agreed that they were not supportive of 

fee increases for health services. 

• There was a range of public responses to the 

report - some people wanted to increase the cost 

for some services but others did not. Not all 

Yukoners participated. 

There are 3 big challenges the department faces: 

• What kind of value do we get for the money we’re 

spending? – we want the best health outcomes 

for individuals. 

Value and quality of health care. 

Are decisions based on good evidence? 

Cost effectiveness? 

• Is the right kind of care out there? (Right doctors, 

nurses, community based care, etc.). 

• Health System Management. 

Managing Expectations: 

• Of the public as service providers (I.e.: right 

equipment, working conditions…). 

• Of lobby groups. 

How to View Health Care: 

 

The majority of costs of health care are all in 

acute care services. We need to look at what 

money is leftover and how do we use it to 

cover all the other health care costs? 

National Question: 

• As an example of major decisions, consider the



Person 

Responsible 

controversial treatment for MS (Multiple 

Sclerosis) - Liberation Therapy. Should our 

Health Care System be picking up the cost of 

this? 

How do we measure the effects of the 

treatment? 

Isn’t one success, success? (I.e.: Tim Cant’s 

treatment and successful results?). 

There is still no clear evidence for this being 

successful. 

Clinical trials need to be done. Working on 

doing this in Saskatchewan. 

This is a real example of an expectation that 

has been created in regards to new 

treatments. 

• Another example is children with autism. The 

government has implemented supports to 

families and this has now substantially increased 

demand, which leads to increased cost. 

• Question of dialysis? Why do we send people to 

Vancouver for this? A rationalized cost benefit 

analysis was done in this regard. 

H&SS: 

• What advice would the YH&SS Council give to 

the Minister to assist in making these decisions? 

• Department and Minister need to decide what to 

say no to and what to say yes to. 

• How does YH&SS Council define “sustainability” 

and how do they view health care sustainability? 

YH&SS Council: 

• How do you prioritize and balance the priorities? 

• What percentage of budget is discretionary 

20% 80% goes to the acute care system (wages, 

care, etc.) 

H&SS: 

• Legislation under the Canada Health Act is 

different from what is legislated by the Yukon. 

• Under the Canada Health Act, medical travel is 

not covered so Yukon covers it by choice. 

• Federal government provides a certain amount of 

money to provide for acute care services. Yukon 

has chosen to get people to medical services 

when necessary through their medical travel. 

• Yukoners pay much less than other Canadians



Person 

Responsible 

for services and in the Legislature, all parties 

didn’t support any extra fees for Yukoners. 

• How do we engage the public more or have a 

public process to understand this? 

• These decisions need to be reflected in the 

Strategic Plan. 

• YH&SS Council is encouraged by the department 

to define “sustainability.” 

• The proportion of government spending in Yukon 

on Health Care is one of the lowest in Canada 

but we know it is increasing. 

• YH&SS Council is encouraged to examine the 43 

levers in the Health Care Review (Legislature has 

not really examined them in depth). 

• YH&SS Councils is encouraged also to 

determine what the priorities should be and how 

the Department should manage expectations for 

the Minister. 

• There are many expectations: personal, various 

parties, the government, the Minister… 

• Expectations and pressures are growing, yet 

people don’t want increased costs to the health 

care in the Yukon. 

• YH&SS Council suggested forming a subcommittee. 

Would the department be willing to 

have someone work with them on this 

committee? Yes, but they recommend 

narrowing the question (I.e.: cost for long term 

care facilities. Yukon charges the lowest rate 

anywhere across Canada. So do we raise the 

rates to increase revenue? Rates have not 

increased, yet pensions have increased). 

• The Health Care Review doesn’t come up with 

recommendations, but it identifies program 

design issues so any of them could be 

considered also. 

‣ ACTION: #2011-06-4a: 

• Kevin will formulate an email about the 

request of having a sub-committee in regards 

to the Health Care Review. 

Jan Langford & Paula Pasquali (Wellness): 

• Jan and Paula are developing the Wellness 

Strategy for Yukon – PowerPoint presentation 

can be found at Corp. Sec./Health Council 

Sec.’s desk. 

• The proposed approach and draft definition for 

• Kevin 

• Marnie



Person 

Responsible 

wellness was given. 

• Chronic diseases are increasing. There are 

many unhealthy behaviors. 2/3 of health care 

costs are associated with chronic diseases. 

• The strategy will address prevention of chronic 

diseases and will lead to savings and a healthy 

economy in the long run. It compliments other 

work being done as well (I.e.: Social Inclusion 

Strategy, Active Living Strategy, Rural School 

Strategy). 

• Jan and Paula have been preparing and reading 

literature on wellness. 

• Wellness is influenced by many factors. 

Education is the strongest factor influencing 

wellness. 

• A set of indicators that are intuitive and relevant 

to track wellness over time will be developed. 

• Will use data that is already being collected (I.e.: 

Canadian Community Health Survey). 

• Wellness is coordinating with Social Inclusion, 

Anti-Poverty Strategy and Education’s rural 

schools strategy. 

• A framework will be developed first with input 

from Yukon people. There is hope of having two 

years to work on the framework and strategy. 

• Wellness work is being guided by what is going 

on in the rest of the country. Wellness is a huge 

concept and you need to choose what activities 

to work on. Activities will be determined based 

on the results of the consultation process and 

determination of priorities. 

• A Smart Risk campaign is being done by WCB. 

• Strategy for children and youth – a lot of work is 

being done on this in other areas (governments, 

non-government organizations, First Nations…). 

The overarching framework and strategy on child 

and family wellness will serve as a “roadmap” 

that can be used by all sectors in Yukon. 

Wellness initiative will focus on health promotion 

and prevention. 

• This requires involvement from all sectors to 

make it effective. 

• Our goal is to be part of the big plan for wellness 

– health promotion and prevention is part of the 

“Health Care puzzle.” 

• It will be important to meet with the YH&SS 

Council again in Whse. for a longer discussion. 

• Currently awaiting approval from Cabinet on our 

plans, including plans to consult with the public. 

• H&SS has funds for development of the



framework. The submission asking for approval 

to proceed with development of the framework 

and strategy needs to be signed by the Minister 

and then it will go to Cabinet. 

• Question: are there other opportunities for other 

governments? (I.e.: federal?) 

• We are working with the federal government. For 

example, we are hosting a dialogue on healthy 

weights (I.e.: childhood obesity) on June 28 th with 

the Public Health Agency of Canada. We have 

some initiatives in the works, funded by feds. 

(I.e.: Health Promotion has the Drug Awareness 

program for youth). 

• YH&SS Council will be kept informed of 

updates and when input will be requested, 

they will let the YH&SS Council know. 

Person 

Responsible 

• Paula 

5) Watson Lake 

Hospitals 

(Maureen Turner, 

Warren Holland, 

Carol Chiasson) 

• A multipurpose care facility for seniors was 

originally planned and they wanted to have the 

ability to move patients back and forth between 

the old hospital and that new facility. 

• In the process, it was discovered there were 

many deficiencies in the old one and would cost 

as much money to re-construct as it would to 

build a new one. 

• New plans for the future hospital were shown and 

described. 

• The idea is to have one location for all health 

care needs of the community. 

• The upper level would become the hospital and 

lower level would be the Medical Centre. 

• Spring 2012 is target to be open. 

• This will include a First Nation Program. 

• A physiotherapy program is being designed and 

developed. 

• Physicians will be on site and diagnosis can be 

done quickly and have the patients go right 

upstairs. 

• This will be beneficial for patients, doctors and 

employees. 

• Capital costs will be reduced and operational 

annual costs will drop when this is completed. 

• A tour of the existing hospital with Carol 

Chiasson, Watson Lake Facility Administrator 

was done and YH&SS Council viewed the 

foundational structure for the new hospital. 

6) Closing • Sustainability is going to be the big issue. We 

need to define it in order to move forward.



Person 

Responsible 

• Open house format will be informal and please 

remember to make notes of concerns or issues 

that people may have. 

Meeting adjourned: 4:20pm 

Minutes prepared by: Marnie Buyck

Minutes - 2011-06-17 (June 17) - Health and Social Services

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