Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chair, just in regards to the Minister’s opening comments, I like what she is saying but I didn’t hear anything in regard to what is going to help our small communities. We have health centres which basically are locked up. No one is operating those facilities. We have nurses that show up in our communities maybe three times a year if we are lucky. I think it is important that this government has to do a better job to basically ensure that we have a health care system that is provided in all communities in the Northwest Territories. We have health centres in our communities. We have facilities in place, but yet for one reason or another, I don’t know, it is simply a problem in the Beaufort-Delta region. This issue has been raised in this House time and time again by myself and Mr. Jacobson. I would like to state that I was hoping that the Minister would have been able to make some comments in regard to what we are going to do with the challenges we face in our small communities, especially when it comes to recruiting and retaining health services in those communities.

In regard to Tsiigehtchic, there was a commitment made last fall. There was a nurse there for three months. The nurse basically was willing to stay longer in regard to having a contract obligation from this government. The process took so long that the nurse basically got hired in the Yukon, which basically we lost a nurse from the Northwest Territories to the Yukon. I think that shows us exactly how unresponsive this department is to small communities and our issues.

Another issue I have a real problem with is the Tl'oondih Healing Society and the mental health position in Fort McPherson going on over 10 years. Because of political differences between the health boards and that society, basically the individual had enough and quit and basically moved on. But yet, Mr. Chairman, the Department of Health and Social Services’ remedy to the problem is they will send

someone into Fort McPherson one day a month, for over 850 people. One day a month to provide mental health services to that community, which, again, is totally appalling in this day and age, and then for a health board in Inuvik to be running deficits going on over five years. This year there is an excessive deficit of over $6 million, yet this government doesn’t do a damn thing about it.

When it comes to the Stanton Health Board, that ran a little deficit a number of years ago. The government stepped in, took over, got rid of the board and basically instituted someone to manage that operation by encompassing a financial arrangement looking at the deficit, finding ways to work it through. Yet, Mr. Chairman, I find it awfully hard to encompass a deficit running every year while we don’t have programs and services being delivered in our communities.

I think, for myself, even in the statement that has been read -- I can read between the lines when you talk about community care and perceiving appropriate and accessible and effective quality care -- this is the right time by most appropriate measures, but then the bottom line for me is the most economical way. I think by using that in your statement clearly tells me the dollar at the bottom line and the more people you have in your communities, that is where the money is going to be spent. But for those communities that are basically struggling, I think for most of our small communities I think it was said here today that our communities that have predominant seniors in those communities, those individuals have made that their home, lived out their lives in those communities and they are going to live out the rest of their lives in those communities. I think that we do have to improve the quality and care for our seniors in our communities. One of the fundamental principles of care for seniors is looking at the health and well being of those people to ensure that they do have health care services that they can provide.

Mr. Chair, another area I have a real problem with, and I know we didn’t really touch on it in the Minister’s comments, is the area in regards to child and family services under the act in regard to adoption and also the people in foster care. It has become an epidemic in the Northwest Territories. We have over 600 kids in care. The majority of those children are aboriginal children. I, for one, know that is a cash cow where people are receiving in excess of $2,400 a month tax free to take a kid into care and which, because he can prove the aboriginal child is affected by FAS, this government basically has to enhance the cost to that individual. It is costing us millions of dollars in regard to that care.

When it comes to adoption or basically trying to re-establish that child with their parents, grandparents or family siblings, this government has every excuse in the world why the grandparents are inequitably feasible to take care of that child, or another family member. But yet we are paying people in excess of $2,400 a month to take care of kids in care. I, for one, have a real problem after we went through the residential school nightmare. It is still upon us. Then for this government to get into the same type of mentality in regard to residential schools using a policy of this government, which basically is the same type of heavy-handed tactic that was used by previous governments to take kids and drag them out of their communities, take them away to school for years on end and then basically try, at the end of it all, to reunite them with their families.

Another area I have a concern about is the area of treatment rehabilitation. I know that it is great to have slogans like cool people quit smoking, quit drinking and quit playing cards. Maybe that will solve all of our problems. Well, excuse me. I think the problem is poverty. This government has to wake up to the reality that we do have poverty in the Northwest Territories. We have poverty in small aboriginal communities. We talk about a recession we are in today. Well, aboriginal communities have been in a recession for hundreds of years. I think it is important that we tell this government that deals with that apprehension, that poverty is the problem of a lot of these ailments in regard to alcohol abuse, drug abuse and basically abusive behaviours in our communities. If you were unemployed for years on end, some of it you didn’t have a hope in heck of getting a job or having an opportunity to maintain a lifestyle for yourself, your family and your siblings, and have people take away your children whenever they wanted to, I think you will have a different insight in regard to what the reality of life really is.

Mr. Chair, another issue that we don’t seem to talk about but I think it is only when we get approached by either our constituents or our political masters out there that basically has court services in our communities, especially when patients have cancer and other ailments have come across by way of an accident, and that basically a policy that we have is becoming very stringent. But yet, Mr. Speaker, a lot of community members still would like to have the ability to escort their siblings or grandparents or parents to a hospital, especially the individuals with cancer and other ailments. I think it is important that this government does whatever it can to have a flexible policy, especially for isolated communities and communities who depend on that family unit.

Another issue in regard to this budget and bill that the government has put forward, you don’t make reference to dealing with territorial water issues and

whatnot. But I think, from what I have seen in my riding and over the years with the challenges we had with water issues in THMs in Fort McPherson and H. pylori in Aklavik, where Aklavik has done a community comprehensive review from the University of Alberta to work on a way to find the source of the problem. I believe the problem is dealing with environmental water issues, which are basically airborne or flow downstream from these issues we hear from Fort McMurray and what is happening in regard to Fort Chipewyan and now seeing it happen in a lot of our communities along the river systems. I think that the government cannot just look at the contribution of $95,000. I think it has to do with education. I think it has to do with more studies, testing and research that has to be done to compel individuals to come forward, get tested to see exactly where those ailments are, how many people are affected and what remedy we have to take to try to pinpoint the problem and, more importantly, treat those people who are affected by these ailments.

Mr. Chair, I believe we have to do a better job of working with aboriginal organizations. We have the Tl'oondih Healing Centre above Fort McPherson. That thing has basically been run off federal programs for the last number of years. Now we have a healing centre just outside of Inuvik, and we were all there for a Caucus that we had, and everybody made grand statements and great comments, but this government has to find ways of delivering programs and services so that we can use these facilities and quit building new facilities that we don’t have to.

There are already facilities on the ground that can be used for treatment and healing programs and also even looking at the possibility of management workshops for our health care professionals or people within the system so that they can have a place to go to receive cultural enhancement programs or give them some education about these regions that they are in and be able to promote those programs.

Mr. Chair, again, I will have a lot of questions for the Minister in this area. I feel that we’ve been let down by this department, especially in the area of Inuvik health services. Again, I don’t see anything being too grand to celebrate here. I think, as a government, when you have a health board running deficits going on six years and do nothing about it, I think you have a problem.