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

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There’s a considerable amount of research throughout the country on the fact that our children are getting considerably larger every year and that obesity is an issue. We also have research that indicates that healthy foods are very positive for development of healthy babies, even mental health. There is research. I don’t know if there are actual reports that we’re using across the department to make decisions, but there is research for the Department of Health to work with.

In my Member’s statement I talked about some type of reporting mechanism and I’d like to coin it as the NWT State of Health for Children. Does the Minister see any value in spending some time over some periodic time, be it two years, three years, four years, of doing some type of annual style snapshot on the health of children in the Northwest Territories to understand exactly what we’re looking at, and how we can work to help solve and make sure our children are healthy and ready for tomorrow?

Yes, we do, I do, and so does the department believe that there would be a great benefit to developing some base studies using the research that we have, and using that to try to curb what is happening now with the children becoming more obese and less active.

I appreciate the understanding from the Minister as he’s just reflected on this

particular problem. I raise this in the context of meaningful research that will have a positive influence on how we invest in our programming. It’s not just Health, it’s whether it’s MACA or Youth or Education for learning or physical activity, et cetera.

Would the Minister be willing to take a look at a strategy that develops a regular type of reporting on the NWT state of health of children in the Northwest Territories, and that would give us a document that we could always use as a sort of format and plan as we work to invest into the long-term health of our children?

Some of that work does happen in Healthy Choices at a national level, but I think the department would have no issue whatsoever to discussing this, whether it be the Social Programs committee or the Priorities and Planning committee.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier I talked about the cost of shipping from either up here in the Northwest Territories to down south and vice versa. My question is to the Premier of the Northwest Territories. What influence can Northerners have on postal rates to small communities?

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve raised the issue of cost of living with the Prime Minister, and he’s indicated that he would prefer that we take a pan-territorial approach. In doing so, we would also have to engender support from I believe it’s six other provinces that benefit from the Northern Residents Tax Deduction.

With regard to specific postal rates, that’s set by the federal Crown agency and we would have to try to engender some support and make representation to the Government of Canada.

Right now we’re kind of going into the Christmas festive season, and a lot of people up here in the Northwest Territories rely on postal services and mail to get their goods up here. Is the Premier willing to look into the matter of changing X0E postal codes for communities on the Northwest Territories highway system?

We can express our concern to the Government of Canada. I think it would be more beneficial to get more jurisdictions into the picture. Something like this is not something that you can change overnight. I think postal rates are changed on an annual basis, as far

as I know. It would need to take a strategic approach.

I’d like to thank the Premier for mentioning those discussions on postal rates are kind of at a pan-territorial level. For that matter, has the Premier discussed the matter of shipping costs to remote communities with federal Ministers?

I have discussed it with a number of federal Ministers and they have both indicated that it’s something that we need to approach on a much larger basis. For one individual jurisdiction it would be difficult for them to change their approach. I think the postal rates are set, pretty well, on a national basis.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In advance of the festive season that’s coming up with Christmas, could the Premier maybe set the stage and perhaps a present for everyone, by: Is the Premier willing to advocate for shipping services and rates that are equal to the rest of Canada on behalf of the people of the Northwest Territories?

We would be pleased to do that. We’re always looking for every opportunity or every possibility to help reduce the cost of living in the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to follow up with the Minister of Health and Social Services and ask a few more questions with regard to the Child and Family Services Act review and possible changes there. The Minister gave me some answers, but the last answer he gave me, he said that basically there was nothing we could do at this time, and he talked about voluntary agreements between a child and social services.

I’d like to ask the Minister if we can do that in a social service milieu, so to speak, why can we not do that for children who are with a foster family or a foster parent. Why can we not make that voluntary arrangement for the family to keep the child until they are at least 18? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this time, in order to do some of the things that we are not doing within the child and family services due to the legislation, we’d have to change the legislation in order to make some of those changes.

Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate that legislative change is required, but I would still think that we could probably make a policy decision to give some flexibility to social workers and to foster families, and allow the child to stay within the foster family and still provide them with some financial support. Does the legislation prohibit us from doing that?