Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I want to use my Member’s statement to give my condolence to the Doctor family, Horassi family in Tulita. Over the weekend, we lost a community elder and member in Tulita. On Sunday morning I got a phone call from my brother, saying that a gentleman passed away in Tulita. Another one has left us in their community. I was thinking about the amount of elders that we have lost in the Sahtu region. Mr. Speaker, people like my uncle Adrian Menacho, an older gentleman in Deline that passed away last year, and an older man in Colville Lake Joe Martin Oudzi also passed away. Several people in Fort Good Hope have also passed away.

Mr. Speaker, when we come here to represent our people, these people, when they ask us to work for them or speak for them, when we go out we seek their support on Election Day to put an X beside our name so we can go and talk to these people that have faith in us to say what needs to be said. These elderly people gave us advice. They give us direction. They tell us how to work together. They tell us if you don’t work together, you create a lot of hardship. They tell us, too, this is how they view life. This is how they grew up. These are the values and beliefs. Sometimes they don’t quite coincide with the modern day living in terms of how we see life. We go back to our communities. These elders are from the land. This is how they see things. Sometimes these elders give us strong words to speak on their behalf, how they see the world. Sometimes it has a conflict with the way they go out today. Sometimes we are in that state of which way do we decide on. But I also heard from one of the elders. You always side with the people. You will never go wrong in your decisions. I heard people say to remember what the elders have taught you and what have they told you. This is why I want to say to the families in Tulita and in the Sahtu that these elders are very valuable to us. I offer my prayers and condolence to the families in Tulita.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s my pleasure to recognize today Chief Edward Sangris and Grand Chief Bill Erasmus of the Dene Nation. Also many of the people and councillors, some of the people I see are Bertha Mackenzie, Ernie Abel, Sarah Plotner, Angela Charlo, John Carter, Kelly Cumming, Leanne Erasmus, and others from the Yellowknives Dene First Nation. Lee Mandeville I see is here. Colin Crozier, Dave Kellett, and many people interested in the important issues before us.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to welcome everybody in the audience here for today. I’d like to recognize some people from my community. First of all, the grand chief of Deh Cho, Sam Gargan, former Speaker and MLA. Welcome. Also Victor Constant from Fort Providence is here with us. Welcome, Victor.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s a great pleasure to recognize Murray McMahon. He’s here in the gallery and is a constituent of Yellowknife Centre, as well as Margaret Petersen, who is with him.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to welcome James Williams and Noah Cockney. Both will be going to the Olympics representing Arctic sports for the next two weeks. Have a good trip and showcase our Arctic sports. Also I’d like to welcome Mr. Greg Hopf of the Aboriginal Sport Circle.

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My colleague MLA Hawkins recognized Mr. McMahon and Ms. Margaret Petersen, but sitting with them is Amanda Petersen from Petersen’s Outfitters.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Greg and Sharon Hopf, a family originally from Fort Resolution.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

I’d like to recognize a former sparring partner of mine during the Dene-Metis claims days, Dan Murphy, who was the federal negotiator. Also I’d like to recognize former Chief Fred Sangris. Also someone from Fort McPherson, Maria Itsi from Fort McPherson. With that I would like to thank and recognize former Speaker of the House Sam Gargan.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. If we’ve missed anyone in the gallery today, welcome to the Chamber. I hope you’re enjoying the proceedings. It’s always nice to have an audience in here.

Item 6, acknowledgements. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t like to be critical, of course, and I certainly don’t like to be unkind to our Minister of ECE, but when I saw this ad today, I’m sorry, but this is the kind of thing that gets me upset. We have a school board in the South Slave that’s running a deficit, and I know you can say it’s all different pockets of money, but really it’s all one department. I have always said I have no problem spending money, I have no problem investing money, I have a problem wasting money. I consider this ad campaign to be a major waste of money on top of the fact that it is a little offensive: a picture of a brain that says “Empty stomachs make empty brains.”

I have questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment about this today. I’d like to ask him who is the target audience of this advertising campaign.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The target audience, of course, is the youth. It was the youth that gave us the direction and also the feedback on what should be advertised in the newspaper. A lot of the youth are spending a lot of their quality time, free time, in front of the TV. That’s a clear message that we’re getting from the youth to say do a different advertisement in the newspaper, on TV commercials, so it’s targeting the youth. It may not make much sense for us as adults, but it came from the youth to focus on what their intentions are. This is focused on the youth.

Well, that makes it even more curious, because if it’s youth that are developing this, I’m quite certain they’re probably old enough to go to the fridge and have a breakfast for themselves before they go to school so they don’t have an empty brain. And I don’t even believe that’s... I think that’s an offence to say empty stomachs make empty brains.

Anyhow, my question is this ad campaign, which is being paid for by the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, I’d like to know what the price tag is on it.

I did request the information and it is coming to our department through the communications department that we’ve initiated this with an outside source. So as soon as I get that information I will certainly share that with the Member.

However much it is, it’s too much. Because I don’t think you can buy a full-page ad in the News/North for much less than about $2,000 a hit. So I would, if I could suggest, think it would have been better if you were trying to instil in young people the idea of having a healthy breakfast to help them do better in school, maybe a poster contest or something where the kids could get involved in expressing their ideas as opposed to something like this.

Under what initiative does this eating breakfast so that you can think better in school, under what initiative of the GNWT and the Department of Education, Culture and Employment does this program come?

This is under the direction of the youth, the feedback of the youth. It’s under the education plan, part of the educational plan of going forward and promoting students to stay in school, the healthiness of our students. Promoting more of that into the communities, Members have alluded to where maybe other work with other departments, whether it be the recreational program or other promotional programs. We are currently doing that as the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. We are working with Municipal and Community Affairs and other health departments, as well, to promote even more of that. We have all these different role models that we’ve highlighted through our posters campaign, so we’ll continue to promote that.