Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do thank the architects of this motion here. It is a very good motion. I will be supporting the motion.

Mr. Speaker, I want to speak in terms of the basic care of respite care in the Northwest Territories, mainly in terms of the second whereas in this motion is to support the goal of keeping families together, as the Member, my colleague, Ms. Bisaro has stated, we need to focus on this goal in terms of one of our supports for families and also support the communities to keep their children as close to home as possible.

Mr. Speaker, we also need to look at the high cost of this program in our smaller communities. I understand that there is a program in Deline that they are working on. Due to the high cost of travel, training and staff, it gets quite costly to have programs like this in our communities. However, we need to look beyond the cost of health care in some of our remote communities and look at a coordinated approach as the motion speaks to having permanent funding right across the whole Northwest Territories. That is the basis I look at this motion in my support for that.

Mr. Speaker, some of our health boards have to make some tough decisions in terms of services that we provide in our communities with the amount of limited dollars that we have, as Ms. Bisaro spoke about in terms of stealing from one pot to support another program. That isn’t the way we should be looking at health care to our people in our communities.

I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that this program is dearly needed in our communities as in other communities. I want to say that this program here certainly does help our families and our people in our communities, and that we need to look at this seriously and not have any programs cut to this program in terms of some haves and some have nots in terms of a health care system being developed.

Mr. Speaker, I will be supporting this motion.