Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s pleasing to see that we’re moving our promotion and prevention budget from the 1.4 percent to its target, I guess, in the life of this Assembly to that magic 3 percent. I guess it’s baby steps in nature. I think the Social Programs committee is very appreciative of that.

Healthy Families, it looks like there’s going to be a breakdown of about $250,000 or a quarter million dollars. Can I get some more explanation? Is this proposed budget going to be mostly going into small communities more so in the Sahtu? Is this where only this money is going to be beneficial, is into the Sahtu area?

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. For the record, Mr. Miltenberger, could you just put on the record that you’re going to refer the question to the Minister and then we’ll start another sequence of questions? Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I apologize. I refer this question to the Minister of Health and Social Services, please.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is the last region that doesn’t have a Healthy Families program. We have gone from the original communities, which I don’t have right now but I think are Fort Smith, Hay River, Behchoko, Yellowknife, and then we’re expanding into the Deh Cho, by having a Healthy Families program in Fort Simpson, with satellite offices or satellite programs, in Fort Providence and Fort Liard. Then we’re expanding into the Beaufort-Delta and Inuvik with a satellite program in Fort McPherson. This is the only region that didn’t have a Healthy Families program, so we’re expanding into the Sahtu. However, we don’t know, we haven’t made a final decision on which communities we will be going, whether we’re going to spread it out into three communities or two communities or all in one community. We haven’t made that final determination yet. We’ll work with authorities to decide that.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Dolynny.

I do appreciate the fact that we have certain regions that don’t have all the fundamentals of the healthy families programs. You’ll see a lot of my questions here today is that I’m trying to make sure that we’re spending the right dollars in the right areas, and making sure that all communities, large and small, are benefactors of our promotion and prevention budget, and that we’re not just picking certain areas for that. Clarity is important.

My second question has to do with the Cancer Strategy, which is about $200,000 which is being added into. As the Member for Weledeh indicated, this is a partnership with the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer and Public Health Agency of Canada, as well as the University of Alberta. Can we get some clarification that this strategy is basically going to be designed more so in Fort Good Hope or Fort Resolution, or is this going to be only for the South Slave communities where this money is going to be spent?

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Miltenberger.

I’ll refer that question to the Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. A lot of the initial work is going to be based in Fort

Good Hope and Fort Resolution, with the request from those communities that they had high cancer rates, so we’ve determined that at least Fort Resolution does have higher cancer rates than normal and that Fort Good Hope was marginally higher than the other communities within the Sahtu. There is going to be some work done in there, but the understanding and the plan is to expand to all of the communities so that this work is occurring in all communities where we’re looking at cancer prevention through lifestyle changes, early detection through appropriate screening. That’s our objective with this money.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Dolynny.

I do appreciate that we are looking at areas I know the Member for the Sahtu is very adamant. I’ve worked alongside the Member looking at those cancer rates. I guess my question is, out of that budget of $200,000, what percentage of that budget is really adhered to early detection through screening?

I don’t have that information with me as far as the percentage. I would say that more of the money would be spent on the prevention through lifestyle changes and also looking at other things like the environment.

I guess the purpose of my question is that we’re putting money towards identifying cancer and getting cases that are not previously detected into a treatment program. I think, speaking from a health professional perspective myself, it’s great to talk about issues, but by the same token, we have to identify people early on in the Cancer Strategy in order to create a wellness program with early detection. I’d appreciate if the Minister could get back to us in terms of what the breakdown is in the future. More of a comment.

My other question again has to earmark roughly what the Member from Weledeh indicated, that the Ministers Forum for Addictions for $300,000, as much as I do appreciate the fact that going to communities and exploring more effective approaches is critical, especially for recovery of addicts and alcoholics, I do have to question the amount. That is a fairly rich budget to do some travelling here. Could we get some clarification? What municipalities, what townships, what communities will be impacted during the spending of that $300,000?

The plan is to go to 50 percent of communities, 16 or 17 communities. We haven’t picked the communities yet. I think once we have our forum, that we’ve gone to the Members to ask them to provide us names of people who would work well in this forum, and then I think we’re going to go sit down with the forum and make a decision

on which communities we would have to attend to have the greatest impact.

I do again appreciate the response. More detail in the future I think would probably be more appropriate for the Members here to understand exactly where these monies are going to be spent during the life of this budget.

Last but not least, I commend the department for again putting more money on the table for prevention and promotion. We’ve worked collectively hard, as Members of the Assembly, to expand these concepts into many of the different communities as we’ve mentioned in the House as well as today. Addictions and abuse doesn’t have an address. We’ve identified certain areas where these extra monies can go. I am a bit concerned that I don’t hear much about Yellowknife. Obviously, I’m a Member from Yellowknife and I’m sure my colleagues are also wondering. We suffer from various issues of abuse and addictions as well. Sometimes, by virtue of our urban placement, we’re a funnelling effect for a lot of the abuse and addictions that we see in the Territories. Can we get reassurances that when we’re looking at disparities, and looking at the distribution of dollars, that we’re looking at all aspects of all community-based programs in the future? If so, can we get some assurances that there’s some methodology and some financial acumen that goes with the prevention budget to make sure that urban centres are not forgotten? I am mentioning Yellowknife, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention places like Hay River and Inuvik as well. Can we get some reassurances that all communities, large and small, are being looked at when we’re doing expansions of prevention and promotion budgets such as this?

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Miltenberger. I’m sorry.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The commitment is going to be, of course, for Health and Social Services to work with the Social Programs committee. This supp was pulled together as a result of a lot of work in the last number of days. The Members are asking for a lot of detail on things that we haven’t had a chance to really put our minds to, other than to agree to the global figure and the general areas where the money is going to be allocated. I’ll ask Minister Beaulieu if he wants to add further to that, but as we are with the Heritage Fund, and as we’ll have the discussion on the energy money, there’s a quantum global figure put in there, and the commitment is to work with committee to look at how that money and these funds are going to be allocated. I’ll ask Minister Beaulieu if he wants to add further to that, Madam Chair, with your indulgence.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I agree that just on pure numbers it’s highest in Yellowknife. On a percentage basis, they’re probably one of the lower communities that are suffering from addictions. Issues with addictions and mental health, and so on, are fairly high on a percentage basis in the small communities. The intention, though, is that if we go down the list here, there are fairly good supports within the city, as well, as it is in some of the regional centres, but especially here in the city where we have most of the doctors living. The Minister’s Forum on Addictions is a part of the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan, which a lot of the work in that action plan will affect the city of Yellowknife and the regional centres. Healthy Families, we’re expanding that. We have a Healthy Families program in Yellowknife and we’re expanding to other communities. We’re trying to go into every region.

The cancer work, as far as cancer screening, we are picking up 45 percent of cancer at stage 1 cancer. The majority of the good ability to screen cancer is in Yellowknife, not in the outlying communities. We’re trying to put a system in place so that we’re easily screening cancer outside of Yellowknife as well, but again, the doctors are here in Yellowknife and so on.

With the whole area of early childhood interventions and health and early childhood development and so on, again, lots of the services are here. We have lots of nongovernment organizations in the city. The city’s not being forgotten. We’re just trying to expand outside of the city to try to provide equal supports outside of the city. There is actually quite a bit of support here already, as far as a lot of nongovernment organizations and so on, we we’re trying to, kind of, provide a service outside that’s just not there right now. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Next, I have Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to follow up where I left off with the Minister’s Forum on Addictions and hark back to my original point at the same time. The Minister invited Members to nominate people to this forum and we were pleased to do so. That work has been on the go for some months now, and this new money was just identified in the last few days. I’m asking the Minister is this, sort of sleight of hand or fancy footwork, in fact eroding any tentative sense of trust that might have been developing between Cabinet and committee?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I’ve heard the sleight of hand phrase used several times in the House in last few weeks, and I think it really borders on

unparliamentary because of the insinuation that might be imputing a motive about that, so maybe we should just be careful about the sleight of hand. Fancy footwork sounds a lot nicer. Minister Miltenberger.