Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services getting back to my statement that I made earlier today. In my statement I highlighted a Yellowknife scenario, but believe me, the situation where parents are losing their teenage sons and daughters to alcohol and drugs can happen in communities across the Northwest Territories; Inuvik, Fort Smith, Hay River, just to name a few.

Many families here in the Northwest Territories are being ripped apart with nowhere to turn when their children aged 15 to 18 take to the streets, are drinking, doing drugs and stealing. We need to make sure that as a government we have the resources to help the parents who find themselves in this nightmare scenario of not knowing where their son or daughter is and whether they are safe.

In the example I outlined in my Member’s statement where a mother goes into Social Services and absolutely lays all of her cards on the table, my first question is: why in cases where it is very apparent that the young person is obviously making bad decisions and bad choices does Social Services say that unless this person is willing to agree to help, they cannot make them do it? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Firstly, I’d indicated that I believe that in almost every community, if not every community, there are places to turn. There are your parents. There are your relatives. If there are health officials, if there are social service people, if there are teachers, if there are other people that work in the community, there’s your clergy that may be available, that we have those resources. The issue that the Member asks about in terms of the example he raised, I don’t have the full details, but I would assume that there’s an age issue and that the individual, the youth is old enough and they have certain rights of their own, as well, that have to be respected. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, if a child is 16 years old, why can’t addictions treatment be given and mandated to that youth at a parent’s request when the teenager who is oblivious to their problem says no, the treatment can’t be enacted upon? I’d like to ask the Minister why this is the case that a 16 year old whose parents want them to get treatment cannot force that child into treatment. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, there are rights issues based on age. There are very few cases where you can have some type of

custodial disposition that will give legal authority to take somebody involuntarily into a treatment program. Those usually work through the courts, if it’s through the young offenders process or if it’s through an arrangement with the Department of Health and Social Services where there is an actual custodial disposition through the courts. But as a matter of practice for those types of situations where you’re dealing with family issues and these types of circumstances, when you’re 16 years old they have rights that have to be respected regardless of what the parents may think or want to do. You’re not in a position to do it unilaterally. Thank you.

I suspect that from the age of 12 to 18 it would be the same answer that the Minister would give us. I’d like to ask the Minister specific to families that are experiencing difficulties with the youth between 12 and 18 years of age what programs and services currently does the Department of Health and Social Services have at their disposal to help families going through these traumatic experiences with their children. Thank you.

Yellowknife has the best selection of services of any community in the Northwest Territories; things like the SideDoor. We have all the Health staff, Social Services staff that are here, the counselling agencies that are here, the health services at Stanton that are here. They have all the other network opportunities that are here. You have all the other access as well of some of the opportunities that I indicated earlier through other non-profit NGOs, as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. This issue was clearly identified during the review of the Child and Family Services Act that was conducted by the Social Programs committee just recently. I’d like to know whether or not the government is going to take any action to address the gap in services and the help available to families that are going through these difficult times, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

The response to the committee’s report was in this House during the last session. There were agreements reached in terms of some additional funding to look at trying to get some of the community and family services committees set up, as well as a review and internal work that we’re going to cover from within in terms of policy review and those types of things. Those commitments will be honoured. The other recommendations will be brought forward through the business planning process and will be there on the table for the incoming Assembly of the 17

th

Assembly in October or November when they have

to grapple with the budget for that coming next fiscal year. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of ITI. Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Minister of ITI how many parks are there in the Sahtu region.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know that we’re trying to establish the Canol Park and the federal government is having a major park expansion in the Sahtu. Thank you.

The Minister and I are well aware that the challenges that we have established in the Canol Park, the territorial park, and once established, that park will be the largest park in the Northwest Territories. I wanted to ask the Minister about the parks, because in his ministerial statement certainly the Sahtu region was dearly missed in his statement, and I want to ask him if he would direct his bureaucrats to keep their eyes and ears open, and maybe they should read my Member’s statement to note some of the good things that would attract visitors to the Sahtu. Would the Minister give a commitment to the people in the Sahtu that future Minister’s statements will include the Sahtu? Thank you.

Thank you. By all means. We try to be inclusive of all regions in the Northwest Territories and we’ll pay special attention to the Sahtu. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. I appreciate your commitment to the people in the Sahtu. I want to ask the Minister, in his Minister’s statement he talked about the investment being spent in the other regions and I want to know about his investment to the Sahtu in terms of training and improvement to our facilities or renovations or any type of shelters. I know there is a McKinnon Park in Norman Wells that is looked after. Is that included in his budget?

Thank you. I’d have to check to see if McKinnon Park is a community park or whether it’s a territorial park under our auspices, and I’ll provide that information to the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to the Minister’s reply to that question.

I want to ask the Minister what steps is his department taking to increase the parks in the Sahtu, in Good Hope, Colville, Deline or Tulita. What things can his department do to establish some sort of community or territorial park?

Thank you. We have a number of initiatives. We do have the Protected Areas Strategy, and that is grassroots developed and promoted from the bottom up. So we’d need the community to bring forward some initiatives to develop community parks. We do, as part of our planning strategy, do some assessments to determine the demand for these parks, and through those various programs we can look at the Sahtu to see what the needs are there for parks. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are in follow-up to my Member’s statement. They’re directed to Minister Miltenberger I guess as the Deputy Premier and Government House Leader and overseer of many things these days. Mr. Speaker, in my Member’s statement I talked about the request that we’ve been receiving as MLAs from certain departments when we are seeking assistance or advocating on behalf of our constituents, consent forms that need to be, well, they come as an attachment to the request for us to get them from our constituents. So there is a form out there called a consent form.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to know if this is now a policy of this government, and if so, when did this become policy. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Deputy Premier, Mr. Miltenberger.