At this time we recognize the fact that there is obesity, high obesity amongst children. The department is trying to work with the federal government on the childhood obesity issue right across the board by asking the health centres and anybody that is in the health field to work on proper eating, and not eating sugar, and exercising and so on. Essentially what we’re trying to do is approach this from a wellness and promotion area, hoping that these issues are picked up at this time. Some of them are difficult to pick up, but that is what we are hoping to do with the promotion and prevention programs.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. David Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It was my understanding that this comprehensive management plan was started and I would be more

than happy to advise the Member of the status of that plan as soon as I find out.

I look forward to that update. I guess really we want to be staying on top of our facilities such as this in a timely way and before they disintegrate to this degree, making the corrections that are necessary. What are the mechanisms that we have to regularly monitor the health of our facilities such as the Prelude Lake boat launch and so on, and for taking action to get those repaired in a timely way?

I take very seriously the concerns related to parks and tourism. I spent a number of years as a parks officer in the North Slave region. I’m well aware of the condition and deteriorating conditions in some of our parks and the fact that when it comes to maintenance dollars and capital dollars, parks, because of the competing interests for those capital dollars, are usually one of the last things that gets put on the table. I think we really need to do parks a service and try to identify capital dollars in a meaningful way going forward that are going to have an impact on our parks and the condition of our parks, because we are out there in a large way promoting this territory to tourists around not only North America but globally, getting them here. It’s important that when tourists do show up in the Northwest Territories that our parks are in shape, that they’ll enjoy their stay and that our residents will also enjoy our park system the way it is.

Thanks for the response from the Minister. As the Minister noted, in my previous question, there’s a wide range of consultation going on with territorial and federal departments with regard to Prelude Lake, but there was no mention from the previous Minister how First Nations governments’ involvement will be ensured, and the public and stakeholder consultations. The boat launch itself is a jumping off point to the use of Akaitcho lands. Can the Minister assure me that the Yellowknives Dene First Nation will be included early in the work and the public will be informed and involved throughout?

I gave the Member a commitment to get him an update on the status of the plan for Prelude Lake and I’d be more than happy to get the Member a status of the involvement of the Yellowknives Dene in those discussions.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister’s commitment there. Another big component of the high demand for a boat launch and parking facilities is the high number of illegal occupations on federal lands, squatters that use the boat launch and so on. I’ve received an assurance from the Minister of MACA

that there will be a call for aggressive federal enforcement of land law. These squats debase our tourism product as well as for the local law-obeying citizens. I’d like to ask if the Minister will work with the MACA Minister to push for federal enforcement of its law.

Yes, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question today is for the Minister of Health and Social Services regarding his opening statement earlier today dealing with prevention and promotion. It’s a great subject and a great move forward for this government to be looking into prevention and promotion to get our people in the NWT healthy and living fulfilled lives. In his statement he mentions that communities are essential in making prevention work. He also says that prevention and promotion activities are essential if we want to improve the health status of our population. I believe currently the policy for the Health Promotion Fund, which this would probably filter through, only provides funding to one project per year per organization. In order to make this successful, I believe that this government needs to provide funding to similar projects on a concurrent basis. Is the Minister willing to look into the policy to change the policy so that groups who have successful projects can get funding in subsequent years rather than just having a one-time deal?

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the plan is to move more money into prevention. That is not to say that we want to increase the overall budget in there. Right now the Department of Health and Social Services is spending over $12 million in the area of wellness and also in that budget is where they have the community-based health promotion. What we’re trying to do is move any programs that look like they’re successful, we’re going to support, because we recognize that issue, too, that some of the programs have been funded one year and regardless of whether they’re successful or not, they’ve been dropped.

What we’re trying to do now is move more of that type of money into prevention. We had indicated in the House before that we were hoping to move about what the department is spending, about 1

percent of its budget, on prevention and promotion, to about 3 percent. Thank you.

As the Minister stated, there will be more funding going into health promotion and the policies and looking at the successful projects. But in the past, I believe the department has seen a lot of successful projects. However, funding couldn’t go back to them based on the policy that if an organization had a successful program one year or they got funding for one year, they wouldn’t be able to see funding for the same project the second year. My question was to the Minister, if he’d be willing to change the policy to multi-year funding rather than just the one-time deal for successful projects. Thank you.

The Department of Health and Social Services goes through the annual business planning process, like any other department, but we actually did discuss the ways where we can do this, where we can provide multi-year funding to organizations that are making progress in the area of prevention and promotion. Thank you.

Just one final question in regard to this new funding that might be going to the prevention area. Will there be a marketing strategy going out from the Department of Health and Social Services to all these communities and all these organizations to let them know that the new policy is going to possibly change, so that any organizations that had successful programs in the past and haven’t gone back to that pot because of the current policy, that they will be able to go back and get funding again for a successful project that they had in the past? What is the marketing strategy for this upcoming fiscal year? Thank you.

Initially, when we’re moving into more prevention, more promotion, our first step was to discuss this with the Joint Leadership Council, which are the chairs and the public administrators of the various health and social services boards across the territory. That is the first thing we’re doing. Secondly, we’re going out to the communities and talking not only to the public but also the leadership, to look at areas that they think would be the best for their communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final supplementary, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In regard to prevention, earlier to my Member’s statement I made a comment that the departments should work more collectively together. Has the Minister of Health worked with other areas such as the Department of Justice and how can they work together so that funding is not duplicated for some of these prevention programs? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, an example of the departments working with other departments is like going into the schools and providing money to the schools and having something like Drop the Pop promotion in schools that we’re going to go into with. Like I indicated, they’ll be launching that in 40 schools this week and next week. Yes, our intention is to work on the prevention with the Department of MACA because of the youth and also in the schools, education. Yes, I think we’re also working on some other areas with the Department of Justice that may not be exactly with health promotion for children, but we’re working with them as well. Thank you.

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