Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That's a good review and certainly looks after that one for me right now. Then, Madam Chair, we can look forward to a potential revision and renewal, a modernization of the way we manage liquor. In the meantime, Madam Chair, this department still continues the mandate to look after the liquor management and the way public awareness programs are implemented. There is in the business plan an outline of this mandate that the liquor licensing and enforcement areas and Liquor Commission encourage responsible use of alcohol through regulation, education of staff in licensed premises and public awareness programs promoting responsible use of alcohol by NWT residents.

I'm wondering if the Minister could advise the committee, Madam Chair, of two things: some detail on the type of public awareness programs that are in place now promoting responsible use of alcohol; and what kind of fiscal investment, perhaps as well as from an HR point of view, what is our investment in promoting public awareness programs and the responsible use of alcohol? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There are a number of areas that we do work with in conjunction with other departments; for example, Health and Social Services, in some of the awareness areas, as well, in general. For example, the liquor stores that are operational do labelling on the bags, as well in the

Northwest Territories we have bottles that are labelled to make people aware that consuming alcohol, especially while pregnant, is not a good thing. So we do that bit of work.

The other area of education and training, as the Member touched on, is in the area with the Liquor Licensing Board which is part of their process. As they deal with companies and those who are set up with licences to sell alcohol in the Northwest Territories, they do reviews from time to time on their operations and make recommendations to the companies that they do serve training in areas of that nature.

We don't have a particular program or budget line that would deal through a broad sense with alcohol education, if it's in schools, for example, and so on. But we do work with Health and Social Services in that area. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It's not really a very impressive list given the impact that alcohol and its abuse has across our society. A number of the things that the Minister has outlined here really are quite passive and non-interactive. A label on a bag, a label on a bottle. Is that really communicating? Is it really working with people to persuade them of the consequences of abuse and helping them to make more responsible decisions? I really think we have badly undershot the responsibility we have. If we have undertaken in the mandate that it's the Department of Finance's job to look after public awareness programs promoting the responsible use of alcohol, we have sadly understaffed and under-resourced this mandate. We've certainly not taken it up from a political position. I just see so little being done in this area, Madam Chair. I would look at the work that this government has undertaken through the Department of Health and Social Services and the tobacco reduction mandate. Superb work there. The WCB has also been a big part of that and some community governments, as well.

Where I see such an amazing change in society's attitude toward tobacco and the impacts that it has, we have chronically missed the responsibility and the opportunity to do something much more aggressively about alcohol. Madam Chair, I'll stop there because I hope these are the kinds of things that we will see engaged during the review of the Liquor Act. I believe and I hope what we're going to hear from the public is that somebody somehow has got to take a far more aggressive action to better manage alcohol in our society. I'll leave it at that. It's more of a comment and maybe a rant, Madam Chair. I welcome the Minister's comments, but I'm not really asking a question there. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. We are in general comments. I'll take that as a comment. Next on the list I have Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I wasn't going to comment more, but this issue that Mr. Braden has been discussing has prompted me to say something here so that it's on record. I was going to wait until the Minister's work is done in April or May when this initial report on this review comes hopefully to AOC to discuss it, but this is such a huge issue. I know Mr. Braden is very passionate about this issue. I'm not sure if what Mr. Braden is calling for, which I think is necessary, should be placed and that debate should take place by way of this review. I think the way we manage or not manage well the use of alcohol and all the accompanying problems and concerns and issues that we have due to addiction or abuse of alcohol and the impact that it has on our citizens should be a discussion that we have among ourselves. I'm not sure if that's a mandate of the Liquor Licensing Board to do this. I think the fact that the Liquor Licensing Board is under the Department of Finance says a lot, because it was really meant to process alcohol through the system. It was never meant, it seems to me, that they were supposed to engage in any kind of public relations or promotion or campaign about how to use liquor responsibly. I understand that they do this work to the limited degree of putting labels on bottles to prevent or dissuade pregnant women from drinking or people to not drink too much. I mean, the Liquor Licensing Board engages in how much taxes to charge. It's a very limited thing and I just had a problem from the beginning in calling for a review to be done in this way.

I see this $80,000 allocated under this department as a response from the government to the concerns being raised by a Member who is very passionate about it, but by any measure I think that's too little money, probably, to get the job done, but maybe a lot of money to do a lot of damage because you don't have enough money to do the right thing. I think we are probably force feeding our responsibility as a Legislature in discussing the real issues at hand here about use and abuse of alcohol. I think that debate should take place in this House amongst ourselves and in a big way in society. I don't think it's the role of the Liquor Licensing Board or the Finance department who is in charge of this Liquor Act to do that.

I also think that the Liquor Act, the way it's written, gives very specific powers to the Liquor Licensing Board. They should not have any power to speak about whether people should use or abuse alcohol. I have a very different view. I think somebody has to do it; I don't think it's the Liquor Licensing Board that has to do that. I think they have a very limited mandate now and they do work within those limited guidelines.

I understand from this side of the floor we're giving the Minister mixed messages, but I'm prepared to wait until the Minister comes back with an initial review. I'm thinking that would have done enough work for us to make the next set of decisions and actions about where to go from here. I certainly hope that this review will consist of going back to all the studies that were done and compiling them together and presenting us with what issues we need to look at and how to conduct further consultation and have a debate.

I thought I should just put this down as an opinion of at least one Member about where I stand on this review before it went too far down. I'm going to, I'm sure, have further comments on that when we get the results of that review back in May. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the Member is right; the role we play now from within the Department of Finance and the NWT Liquor Act is not as broad as some of the areas. We know, for example, as a government, the impact that

liquor has on our communities and families is much broader than the act itself. As a government, we're going to have to deal with and come up with a way of dealing with this as we've heard earlier about what programs are being run through Health and Social Services, like the anti-smoking campaign. Those are things as a government-wide issue we have to start wrestling with and trying to see if we can do things in respect to how people in the North deal with that issue and how we, as a government, would go forward dealing with that issue.

The Liquor Act itself comes right down to the fact of the operations of the Liquor Licensing Board, the relationship that they would have with establishments in ensuring that there are some rules and regulations in place and the sales of the product here. As well, part of this work will entail and we're expecting that the consultant will review existing research and studies on the impact of alcohol on the social behaviour in other jurisdictions. That is a part of it that's going to happen. Again, we're looking for what's happened in other jurisdictions in Canada with respect to the retail and regulatory side of the liquor systems and maybe some recommendations on appropriate change that can be looked at, as well as our enforcement side.

So the Liquor Act itself deals more with the mechanics, operations, enforcement side of things; punishment and provisions, for example. But we're aware there is a social impact. There is going to be some of that looked into as we go forward. I think in the broader scope as a government we're going to have to start to deal with that issue besides sort of after the fact coming up with treatment programs. That is one of the pieces, but I guess we're going to have to take more of a proactive role as a government. But the Liquor Act review is narrower in some of the areas, but we'll touch on some of those comparisons in other jurisdictions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Any further general comments on the Department of Finance? Okay. Everybody is indicating we should proceed with the detail. Under Finance in your budget binder, page 3-13, directorate, operations expenditure summary, $1.351 million.

Page 3-14, directorate, active positions, information item. It goes on to page 3-15, as well. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know that page 3-10 is there for information only, but I do have a couple of questions on that.

Okay. Thank you. We'll come back to that after we've gone through the rest of the detail. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That will be fine.

Thank you. Activity summary, treasury, operations expenditure summary, $4.863 million.

Pages 3-20 and 3-21, treasury, active positions.

Fiscal policy, operations expenditure summary, $745,000.

Page 3-24...oh, I'm sorry. Committee, I'm going by what I'm hearing and I'm hearing people shouting agreed. That's a very agreeable group on this side. I'm sorry. I'll slow down then. I'll read it slower, but when you've had a chance to note the page and if you have any questions, please indicate. Page 3-24, information item, fiscal policy, active positions.