Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Ontario physicians have recently issued a call for higher taxes on junk food and graphic warnings on food with no nutritional value. While I’m sure that they mean well, I don’t think junk food taxes or warning labels get at the real cause of childhood obesity and I would hate to see us go down that road. I personally hope that bags of chips and chocolate bars don’t start to look like those cigarette packages with the scary faces and scenes on them.

Although the message is important, we all know that obesity, of course, directly relates to what children eat and there’s no mystery to that. It is the cornerstone of one of the bigger issues of the problem. In the North the reality is that junk food is far cheaper than healthier food and a tax on junk food won’t close that gap. I ask: Is junk food really the problem or are we fighting the right fight with the right resources? Or are healthy foods so darned expensive that many people in the communities and in the North just can’t afford it? I know that is a contributing factor that is a real factor.

Obesity, as I’m sure the Minister will agree, is one that is closely related to the physical activity that people have, which has been significantly dropping since the invention of video games and access to TV. My house is absolutely no exception to that reality. This discussion got me thinking, of course, with asking ourselves if we are spending too much time on the assumption of anecdotal evidence. But how much time do we spend on gathering true evidence to make fact-based decisions for our programming and future programs in the government? Should we tax or create regulations?

Do we regulate or collect data on children’s indicators such as obesity rates, prevalence of Type II Diabetes, and things like physical activity? What about immunization rates, number of visits to the hospital centres, emergency care rooms, dentist visits, treatment for acute illnesses, prevalence to asthma and allergies? The list goes on. What I’m getting at is the fact that we need regular reporting on children’s health indicators like these that would be an invaluable resource for decision-makers such as ourselves to determine where our scarce and sacred resource programming dollars must go.

What I’m calling for is an annual NWT state of children report that, although it may not be annual in the context of year to year, this government could look closely at producing something every five years. It’s facts and data like this that could help us plan and invest our limited resources. Yes, the other night I went to Mr. Miltenberger’s budget dialogue, but the fact is the Lego was great for visual but we need the facts behind us to know where we need to spend our priorities and focus our attention on resources.