Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I didn’t want to lose my opportunity to talk about the Department of Health and Social Services but, more importantly, the lack of programs and services we see in our small, isolated communities. We seem to be doing a lot to increase large programs and services with regards to the dementia centre, amalgamated clinics, large-scale hospitals, but we haven’t done much by ensuring or improving the quality of health care services in our small communities. I, for one, have been raising this issue prior to division, and if you look at statistics going back prior to 1999 when we had division, when we were one Territory, we received better health care then than we do today. We can actually see the expenditures made in our communities where they had full-slate nurses, where they had their services being provided just by the capital expenditures being spent back then. But yet, every time you build a new clinic, you build

the dementia centre, you build a new hospital, those dollars come out of the same pot of money that the smaller communities are depending on for programs and services, and when we continue to say forced growth this and forced growth that, we are the ones that are adding to the problems by increasing more programs and services and taking away those dollars and resources to ensure we have a service provider that provides services across the board to all communities, and not use the excuse, well, sorry, you don’t have the numbers, or you’re not really that important and because you can take a bus or hitchhike or whatever you have to do to get to a hospital, that’s your responsibility.

I’m just wondering, as aboriginal people in northern Canada, should they consider going to the United Nations, or even talk to Doctors without Borders and come to our communities, provide that health care service that this government is not providing. I think it has come to a point in the road in regard to actually saying is there another option to health care services for aboriginal people in those communities that aren’t getting any. I hate to say this, but some communities feel like they’re a third-world country in Canada, especially aboriginal people.

We talk about the health and well-being of our residents. There are people that are struggling in our communities who are cancer patients, who are patients dealing with diabetes, but do not have the ability to go across the street to the health centre and see a nurse. Little things like that make a difference in our small communities. Having the security and knowing that if I don’t feel good or I’m not well, that there is going to be care provided for me in my home community.

There was a big step a number of years ago to implement mental health addiction workers throughout the Northwest Territories to ensure that that was one way of providing some means of services to our 33 communities. But what happened there is you gave it to the policy people in regard to drafting up the criteria and the formula for what type of mental health workers you need and basically the qualifications they’re going to need. They made it so stringent that our local people could not acquire those jobs, which they used to fill prior to the decision to take back to the Department of Health and Social Services and were not able to provide those services in our communities because you couldn’t find the people with those qualifications to move to these isolated communities and know that basically the quality of wellness or community security was not there. You don’t have policing. You don’t have a backup system in regard to a nurse. When you don’t have basic housing in regard to those communities, we continue to be dealing with external or internal pressures to deliver services, but we do nothing by

way of finding ways to bring down those pressures so that we can physically see programs and services being delivered in our communities.

Mr. Chairman, I think it’s about time that this government seriously looked at what’s wrong with our health care system. The problem is it’s top heavy. You spend more money on administration by way of operation administration than actually delivering health care on the ground. I think, if anything, that we do have to start reeling in some of those administrative expenditures and put it where it’s needed by way of your front-line workers in communities, on the ground, so there are actually health care providers providing health care in all communities in the Northwest Territories.

More than ever we’re seeing the effects from First Nations’ communities to the health and well-being of communities, regardless of their diets, their diagnoses in regards to more and more cases of diabetes. Simply a lot of that has to do with a change in diet.

We’re seeing a problem now that we’re debating here in the House in regard to caribou. You can’t simply take an aboriginal person or a person who has always, all their lives, depended on that as their main supplement for their diet. You have to realize that people depend on country foods as their main staple for maintaining their health. But what we’re seeing is that it’s harder and harder, and people are struggling to be able to have those fresh caribou or fresh fish or fresh berries that they basically have always depended on as a means of sustaining themselves, and having to deal with store-bought foods and products which have high traces of sugars and whatnot and that are having a direct effect on our aging population.

The other area that I think is important for this government to seriously look at, and I know that it’s been some time since we actually built health care services for seniors by way of improving the seniors facilities in our communities, seniors care homes, and also the level of seniors’ care in regions and communities that can definitely display that there is a high need for seniors’ care in those communities than simply having to send seniors to regional centres and finding ways to retain the seniors in our home communities so that they can be close to family, their friends and, more importantly, communities that they grew up in. I think, as a government, we do have to work with the Housing Corporation and Department of Health and Social Services to find a way to implement that program.

I, for one, feel that this government has to do more to deal with substance abuse. We used to have alcohol and drug treatment centres in the Northwest Territories. We’re seeing the problems with substance abuse. We’re seeing the problems with hardcore drugs, regardless if it’s cocaine, crystal meth, and also the problem in regard to addictions

and the effect it’s having on the whole Northwest Territories and not having the options or alternatives that people can turn to and having to send them south for treatment.

There were a lot of federal dollars you mentioned in your budget in regard to federal initiatives, but I think one that hasn’t been mentioned is what’s going to happen in regard to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation funding, which again is ending this fiscal year, and looking at some alternatives to support those organizations that have done some great work in our communities by way of accessing this federal program and federal initiatives, regardless if it’s through Health Canada and whatnot. I think it’s essential that we do have the means and the abilities in our communities to cope with the day-to-day pressures of just dealing with the stresses of living in small communities, but also being unemployed, looking at the social and economic conditions that a lot of communities are in. Again, it’s something that I believe this government has to take ownership of.

One of the areas I hear a lot of in regard to my region is the lack of dental care in the Inuvik region in regard to children who basically are having effects in regard to their dental care. Children who should have braces but aren’t able to because there’s no one in the Inuvik region that can provide them with that expertise. It’s been some time since they filled those positions. But I think dental care is just as important as health care and, if anything, that we do have to ensure that the well-being of the residents is taken care of throughout the Territories. I know that from talking to a lot of parents where a lot of parents are stuck in the position of having to pay their own way to southern dental professionals when dealing with braces and whatnot, and also having to pay the cost of sending their kids either to Yellowknife once a month at their cost. They’re bearing the costs of this, which isn’t cheap. But yet that service should be provided, especially in the major centres to serve the regions, and not have to put the burden on the parents to take care of that cost in which now they’re having to do it for the well-being of their children.

Mr. Chair, in regard to the area of services in communities, I think that we do have to do everything that we can to ensure that we do provide services and not simply say, well, it’s the Minister’s responsibility or department’s responsibility and sort of it’s up to the health boards. Again, for the health board in the riding I represent, it’s going on five or six years that this health board has been running a deficit. It has not been filing any financial statements, has not been showing its public responsibility for accountability by financial accountability to not only this House but the people of the Northwest Territories. If you’re not providing services by way of your responsibility, again, I stated earlier, that the Minister, through ministerial

responsibilities, has to either take back that responsibility, take back those dollars and find a different instrument of delivering that service regardless if it’s through an NGO or through another means or through their office to ensure that services are being provided. For me, that’s the biggest concern I have, is that I’ve seen too many good people go to the health centre and find out a couple of days later they’ve passed on because they either waited too long or they were misdiagnosed or they basically were prescribed a drug that they shouldn’t have taken and it has caused death. I think as a government we are responsible to ensure that we do provide health and social services to all residents in the Northwest Territories and ensure that we don’t have these situations where families are grieving over a family member because they weren’t taken care of. Thank you.