Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be supporting the motion as well. Certainly, it’s not entirely clearly defined how this is going to work. If people think that having a milk subsidy is too administrative a burden, then maybe we should just give it away. Maybe in a small community where milk’s expensive, we should just have a cooler full of milk that anybody can take and not just people ages one to 12.

People have mentioned some of the pressures on seniors. Everybody could stand to use a little more

milk. I don’t know about everybody else’s kids, but I’ll tell you, when my kids were growing up, if there was cereal in the cupboard, that milk jug got hauled out of that fridge a lot of times. There are a lot of good things you can do with milk. You can make soup — you’ve got milk based soups — you can make pudding; you can put it on cereal. You can make a lot of different things. You can put it in bannock. It’s a good staple food.

So I support the subsidy program. Like I said, if it becomes administratively burdensome — how you’re going to deliver it — I would just suggest giving it away, and I do not know how we as a government could go wrong. I don’t think anybody’s going to abuse milk.

As to Mr. Hawkins’s point of giving families a $100 subsidy, you have no guarantee where the $100 is going to end up. It may not end up buying milk. It may end up buying something else that we don’t support as a government. No slight against the folks who…. But, you know, there are a lot of pressures for family money. This will be one way of ensuring that everybody has access to something very nutritious, and it can become a staple in lots of different foods. So I would support that.

The only other thing I would suggest is that in the implementation of this milk subsidy, I would like to ensure that we check with communities that already have people who are working on breakfast programs and nutrition programs in the schools and so on, that we build on what people are already doing rather than coming in there and them vacating what it is they are doing in the community on a voluntary basis. I would like to work with them and add this to it. I think it’s a very good idea and a step in the right direction. I support the motion.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. To the motion, the honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Speaker, some years ago I remember going to one of the small communities. I was hosted by a family, and when we got up in the morning, we had some breakfast. I couldn’t believe that a family that was feeding the child breakfast cereal…. They had water there, and they had Coffee-Mate. They were making milk for the child. That’s their milk, because the milk is so expensive in our small isolated communities that have no roads, have no opportunity to purchase milk at a lower price. I sat there with the family, a well respected elder and mother, and they were making milk with Coffee-Mate, and they were pouring that for the children to eat before they went to school.

I asked some people in my region and my community: in the past what did you do? Our lifestyle has changed quite considerably from the nomadic life to where we are now in the

communities, where we have great dependency on the store, and Health Canada has been pushing to have milk as one of the primary products to have within our lifestyle.

Mr. Speaker, the price of milk is something that has been a big concern for my region. I’m just looking at some prices here. These are probably old prices. In Tuktoyaktuk it’s $8.99 for two litres. It’s probably gone more now, on special. And I hope it’s fresh. In Good Hope it’s $6.50. But another number, I think, is more reflective of the prices that we pay in our small communities now.

Mr. Speaker, I will certainly, definitely support this motion. I think there is something that we can do immediately. I think that the Food Mail Program will take.... You know, the government will drag its feet on that. It will have a lot of complications and challenges to implement a true Food Mail Program in the Northwest Territories. But this is something that we can definitely show our people in our regions that we are supporting the different guidelines that we are being handed by Health Canada, by the Government of Canada and this government, in terms of how we sustain a healthy life within our families, within our communities.

I hope this milk subsidy program sees the light of day by the time we get through the business plans in terms of how we implement something like that. It is so beneficial and certainly will help our communities in terms of them coming to the stores — not to benefit the Northern Stores — to benefit our people. Some of that milk sits on the shelves, and it’s past due date. They still sell it at full price. It’s a crying shame.

Today is when we have to check. In our community sometimes the expiry date has already gone past; we still have to pay the full price, though. I hope that now, when the students come and the families come into the Northern Stores, they have fresh milk there at a good price, and that’s something that they can afford, and they can now tell people in the communities, “We’ve got milk.”

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. To the motion, the honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’m in full support of this motion. I thank Mr. Bromley for bringing this forward and know how many people it’s going to affect in the smaller communities. I really think, you know, the well-being of our youth.... They are our future, so we should try to help them in any way we possibly can, especially the families. I mean, I have five children at home. We go through a lot of milk in my house. In regard to any motion like this that will help the people, it should be done. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. To the motion, the honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, will be supporting the motion. I would like to thank Mr. Bromley. I think it’s important to put good healthy food on the table, and I consider milk to be very healthy. As people in the House know, I support the youth strongly, and I’m happy to see that they will be getting a good start with milk and so on. So I, too, will support the motion. Perhaps at some point this milk subsidy can be expanded to formula and start with infants right up to 12 years old.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. To the motion, the honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to just speak briefly to this motion, as lead Minister of the Reducing the Cost of Living Strategic Initiative. I appreciate the intention behind the motion and agree with the Members that we need to make sure that our children get every opportunity to grow up healthy and strong. As a government we believe that all of our residents should be able to meet their basic needs and already have many programs that help ensure this.

At the same time, Mr. Speaker, we know that economic pressures on our residents are increasing, and we welcome the opportunity to work with Members on actions that will help people over the long term. The government is committed to working on reducing the cost of living, and we made this a focus of our strategic initiatives. We do recognize our high cost of living makes it difficult for some of our people to meet their needs. We also recognize that there are differences in cost between our communities, and that threatens the sustainability of some of our more remote and small communities. We do want to take steps that will help reduce these differences and ensure that NWT residents have fair and equitable access to the most basic necessities where they live.

Mr. Speaker, I think it should be noted that the GNWT also supports programs that ensure our children have access to nutritious and healthy food regardless of need. One example is the Department of ECE’s Healthy Children Initiative, which provides funding to community based child development programs. In 2007 and 2008 this initiative provided just over $1.6 million to support child development centres, preschools, daycares and other early childhood programs that often serve nutritious snacks to children in communities across the NWT. ECE also provides funding to help licensed daycares and day homes purchase food for healthy snacks and meals. In 2007 and 2008 there were 117 licensed programs caring for 1,768 children up to the age of 11. In total, Income Security spends

$17 million a year on food, shelter, utilities and clothing, and we saw an increase of that just last year.

Mr. Speaker, we do support the intent of the motion, but we do want to look at whether milk should be the one that should be subsidized, whether it should be a subsidy. We are willing to review that. Not everyone drinks milk. There might be other things, and it’s not part of a traditional diet in every community either. So if there are other alternatives that we could look at, we want to look at that.

Also, we want to look at the fact that the cost of living is determined by many independent and other factors, such as transportation of goods. Subsidy at the end of the supply chain is not always the best way to deal with the cost of living. So as the lead Minister of the strategic initiative committee, I’d like to tell the Members that we will review this and we will continue to work at other ways of reducing the cost of living in the long run. Also, as this is a recommendation to the government, Cabinet will be abstaining from the motion.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. To the motion? I’ll allow the mover of the motion closing comments. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to begin by reiterating that this idea came from the people, and I’m just one of the vehicles here bringing this forward. It has been stressed that this is a preventative and creative approach. It has got an element of fairness to it — small communities and so on, the potential to be revenue neutral. There is absolutely no duplication with the Food Mail Program.

I have to comment briefly on some of the spurious arguments I have heard on that. There are about half of our communities that actually have the food mail service. But this program could apply to milk that was brought in with the Food Mail Program, as I’ve tried to highlight to all Members. It is a starting point.

Seniors. I would love to see us help out seniors as they need it. We’ve heard about Nunakput seniors and some of the empty fridges there. We’ve also heard from the Minister of Health. I appreciate that support, that there are many programs out there. I am sure that this idea will be modified and that many brains will be brought to bear on this, hopefully milk fed brains so that they will be sharp and fully developed.

The preventative approach was also stressed. Diabetes is one of the big diseases that we are facing.

I would like thank everybody for their comments and hope they are recorded here. I would also like

to request a recorded vote, and unlike the Minister of Health, I’d like to strongly encourage Premier Roland to allow Cabinet to have a free vote on this motion. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Member is requesting a recorded vote. All those in favour of the motion, please stand.

All those opposed to the motion, please stand.

All those abstaining from the motion, please stand.

Results of the recorded vote: ten for, one against, seven abstaining.

Motion carried.

Item 17, first reading of bills. The honourable Minister responsible for the Financial Management Board Secretariat, Mr. Miltenberger.

I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, that Bill 21, Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures) 2009–2010, be read for the first time.

Bill 21 has had first reading.

Motion carried; Bill 21, Appropriation Act

(Infrastructure Expenditures) 2009–2010, read a first time.

Item 18, second reading of bills. The honourable Minister responsible for the Financial Management Board Secretariat, Mr. Miltenberger.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, that Bill 21, Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures) 2009–2010, be read for the second time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill authorizes the Government of the Northwest Territories to make infrastructure expenditures for the 2009–2010 fiscal year.

Bill 21 has had second reading.

Motion carried; Bill 21, Appropriation Act

(Infrastructure Expenditures) 2009–2010 read a second time and referred to a standing committee.