I have to think it will be successful or I wouldn’t be doing this. I think the success is there because the recommendations are going to be from the communities. When we travel into the communities, communities say government doesn’t listen to them. That’s what we want to do. We want to listen to the people. We want to listen to all people.

I mean, there’s one forum that’s going to be dealing with just Yellowknife and Hay River. Because of the size of the city, we’re going to try to do a system where we’re going to sit down with them and ask

the people on the forum how would they recommend that we go out to try to encompass as much of the community recommendations as possible. Maybe the recommendation will be that for the city of Yellowknife, in order to reach out, we’re going to have to do surveys on-line or communications through television, radio and so on. For that reason, I think a solution is going to come from the communities. They should know. They’re the ones that are seeing the issues day in and day out and they must have a solution. We’ll go out and find that solution and put our money towards that.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Indeed, the issue of addictions in the Northwest Territories is a very, very perplexing one, and I applaud the Minister that he is trying to do something. However, I agree with my colleague Ms. Bisaro that we have studied this issue to death.

Minister Miltenberger came to Hay River when he was doing his forum on where we should be spending money and stood up and made a very, very eloquent speech about personal responsibility. Maybe we shouldn’t be asking people who are healthy and sober what we should be doing about addictions such as the wonderful people that Mr. Beaulieu has appointed to this forum. Maybe we should go and ask the people who are doing the drinking what the solution is.

Because you know what? In my 17 years as an MLA, I haven’t had very many people come up to me and go, oh, Jane, please help me, I have a drinking problem. I’m addicted to alcohol. Where can I get help? My gosh, if one person came forward and said I have a drinking problem, I need help, we’d be so all over them. We have so much out there to help them, but the problem is that the people that have the problem that we’re studying as the issue aren’t asking for the help. They’re more thinking about how can I keep drinking and pay for my house, or how can I sustain my drinking habit and still have a roof over my head or food in my cupboard.

Anyway, sorry. I know I’m going on about this as a Member’s statement. I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services who’s on his committee.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.

There are 12 people. We started off with 14. I could name them. In Beaufort-Delta we had asked Hazel Nerysoo, Lawrence Norbert, Freddie Carmichael and Ann Kasook to sit

on that and two of them dropped out, Ann Kasook and Freddie Carmichael. In part of the meeting tomorrow we’re going to discuss the possibility of replacing them.

In the Sahtu/Tlicho we have Paul Andrew, Marie Adele Rabesca and Charlie Neyelle. I understand that Charlie Neyelle is contemplating not participating.

In Hay River/Yellowknife we have Jill Taylor, Laurie Sarkadi and Frank Yakimchuk.

In South Slave we have JoAnne Deneron, Pat Martel, Dave Poitras and Wilfred Simon.

Again, I’d like to applaud the Minister. This is a very, very good and esteemed group of people he’s pulled together for this Minister’s Forum on Addictions. But when we are looking at the terms of reference, could we please, for a change, instead of talking to people who think they know the solutions who aren’t living the issue but only observing the issue, could we please talk to people who are actually living the issue? Could we find a way to get them to talk? Because the Minister asks the question in his statement: I want to know what will make people stop drinking and want to live a happy life. That’s a very complex question and I suggest we should be asking the people who have got the addictions.

Yes, we will pass that information on to the forum. I guess many people on the forum may be listening to us today discuss this, but that can be something that we will put into the system. We will encourage people who are currently suffering from alcoholism to attend the forums. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, of course, this public proceeding here is a forum as well. If there are people out there in the communities, in all of our communities that are listening to this and hearing this today and do have a problem with addictions, who have problems with alcohol and want to find a way out, who want to find a healthy, happy life, I want them to not only know they can approach this forum but that they can go to their health centre, that they can write a letter to the Minister or their MLA, they can phone us and they can tell us what they think their solution is to this problem. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, that’s a good idea. Yes, I too will encourage that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Colleagues, I’m going to remind Members today, I saw six Members going off on their cell phones. There is no cell phone usage in the House. I am not going to name names, but enough is enough. Give your colleagues the courtesy of their questions and listening to what is going on in the House. I am not going to bring it up again. Thank you.

The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 8 on the Order Paper. Thank you.

---Unanimous consent granted

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am aware of that complaint. We do get a lot of compliments on Blackstone as well, so I wanted to put that out there.

Just last week we approved the meager capital budget for ITI. It did include some money for Blackstone Park, replacement of the kitchen shelter facility at Blackstone as well as a contractor residence at Blackstone. It’s a beautiful park. We do need to find additional capital dollars every year and fight for those capital dollars to go into our parks and campgrounds around the NWT. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I am glad it will have upgraded facilities, but the complaint talks about repairs to the current, existing facilities.

What will be done to fix these deficiencies that were noted at the Blackstone Territorial Park? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, before the parks close up each and every year, there is an inventory taken of necessary repairs that are required not just at Blackstone but at other territorial parks around the territory. We do our best with

maintenance staff and contractors to ensure what can be fixed, with the budget that we have, is fixed and repaired before next park season begins. Thank you.

I’m glad that there is inventory taken of facilities. Is there a plan to fix these deficiencies as they are noted, particularly the Blackstone? Is there a plan to fix the noted deficiencies? I’m not too sure if it came out in the inventory as well. In fact, I wouldn’t mind seeing a copy of that year-end report as well. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to work with the Member and get him the year-end status report from Blackstone. To the letter that the Member cited, we have responded, as well, to those folks who stayed at Blackstone. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.

Mr. Speaker, just one more follow-up. I didn’t hear the Minister respond to what specifically they will be doing at the Blackstone Territorial Park to fix those deficiencies. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, for that detail, I’ll get that from the department and the region. We’ll get that to the Member as well. I will let the Member know exactly what we plan to do there before next park season. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve had a theme of safety today, so I’m going to continue on this theme with the Minister of Transportation.

As we indicated today, the first day of November, we are hoping the opening of the much anticipated Deh Cho Bridge is going to be happening in this month. As we’ve heard in our dialogue earlier in some of our capital discussions, we are dealing with some temporary issues as we prepare to go across this bridge in a degree of safety. What I mean by that is we have temporary electrical set up, we have temporary aviation marine lights hooked up, we have temporary navigation, we have temporary accent lighting, we have temporary conduit or conduit that needs to be done. More importantly, we don’t have an active or operating emergency phone system. These are all not actively in a final state.

Can the Minister assure that, because these are obviously requirements for safety and for the completion of this bridge, that indeed if this bridge will be open here at the end of November, are NWT residents safe? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Ramsay.