Thank you, Ms. Lee. Supplementary, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we do have a crisis in the Northwest Territories when we have communities that don’t have policing, don’t have nursing, don’t have mental health positions, don’t have social workers, don’t have anything, yet we can talk about million dollar health care facilities and clinics that people can walk into. We don’t have that. So I’d like to ask the Minister, along with her staff, along with her regional staff, if she can make an effort to establish some timeslot on your agenda to go into the community of Tsiigehtchic with myself and meet with the community to find solutions to this crisis situation that’s occurring in a lot of other communities, but this particular community is in my riding. So I’d like to ask the Minister, could she commit to that here in the House today?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Absolutely. I make a commitment to be in Tsiigehtchic at my earliest possible opportunity; perhaps in January. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I’d like to ask the Minister if she can also ensure that the resource people who are responsible for health care delivery in the Inuvik region are present at this meeting so they can respond to the community by way of a community meeting so that the resource people are present along with the Minister. But if I can ask the Minister, could she give me a

more general date and time, like the first week in January, so we can sort of nail it down so I can forward it to the community and the chief of Tsiigehtchic? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, absolutely I will work with the Member to make sure that we have all the resources and staff necessary from the Beaufort-Delta authority who could be there with us. Secondly, I am looking at the first week after the holidays in January as a travel time to go to the Inuvik area and Tsiigehtchic and the surrounding communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Justice, just with regard to the national issue of tasers. I’m just wondering, is the Minister aware of any change in operations or, I don’t really want to say review there, Mr. Speaker, but is the RCMP in the North more sensitive to this issue now that it’s been raised at the national level for use in the North?

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for Justice, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are aware that there’s national events that are happening with regards to the taser gun. But with our jurisdiction in the Northwest Territories, we’re quite small and quite low with the incidents to that matter. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps the next question, I know I thought I saw it in the newspaper, but how many incidents in our northern territory of the use of taser was recorded? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’ll certainly make an effort to check with my department and be willing to share with the Member on the stats. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. As well as if he can also request the stats on the use of pepper spray as well, because that’s just as serious. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, we will provide the Member with information on stats pertaining to pepper spray and also the taser. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll try not to forget my question halfway through this time.

---Laughter

My question is to the Minister of Human Resources. I’d like to start off by thanking him for his statement on human resource efforts and acknowledge all of the hard work that the staff at the Department of Human Resources have put in. Now, listening to the statement, something strikes me as being missing and that’s there was no mention of poor morale in the public service.

Through conversations with my constituents, it’s obvious that there are pockets of poor morale within this government. There are silos where there are problems. Is the Department of Human Resources going to conduct any surveys or studies on the public service as a whole to identify those silos or areas where poor morale exists and put in plans to address them so that the services that are being provided to the public are the highest quality? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Human Resources, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the honourable Member for his observations about morale in the public service. As I said, human resources are our most important asset. This is an area which is difficult to quantify. In the past we’ve used employee engagement surveys. This is something that we will be doing, I understand, in the near future. The last employee engagement survey that was undertaken was in 2006. At that time the results of the survey indicated that most of the employees were satisfied with the responsibilities of their position. I think that’s probably the best way to determine the morale of government employees. Otherwise we’re just relying on the observations from individual employees. Thank you.