Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe we have an assortment of disaster funds that we can call upon. I think the biggest one is the arrangement we have with the Government of Canada where they have a disaster fund. We do have a Forest Fire Disaster Fund, mainly for harvesters. We do have a Harvester Disaster Fund for hunters and trappers that have acts of God causing them to lose equipment. I believe through MACA we have emergency funding that can be called upon if required.

Many times when we have these funds available to the communities, there are a lot of barriers. I’d like to ask the Premier and Cabinet if they could please not put so much red tape on the communities that they can access this funding.

As a matter of fact, that is the very reason why we have a Reducing Red Tap Initiative that we’re doing through the Refocusing Government Cabinet committee. In most cases, these disaster funds, the only requirement is that they be acts of God or natural disaster. For the Harvester Fund, you have to show that you have actually earned some revenue from hunting and trapping.

Many times communities face flooding. As many may know, communities face a lot of silt, either in their houses or on the roads. I’d like to ask the Premier if it would be possible for the communities to use a lot of that funding to chipseal their roads.

I’ve been listening to these kinds of requests before. For those communities that have gas tax funding, they do have the authority to make those kinds of decisions on whether to chipseal a road or not.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The intention of this forum initially was to have the forum around December, depending on how much information we are able to gather. Although we thought we had a structure in mind on the forum, now we’re considering the deliberations that have occurred during Committee of the Whole and we’re looking at maybe changing the structure of the forum at this time.

I’ll try the question again. Is this forum intended to be ongoing, is it a one-shot deal, or will it carry on for more than one year, and what is the purpose of the forum?

I’ll try to answer it again. December 12th is the time that we’re hoping to have

the forum finalized. The purpose of the forum is to travel to the communities or have those individuals from the communities travel here. We still haven’t finalized that. We’ve had to start to rethink how we’re going to do it, but the purpose of it is to gather information on addictions. Thank you.

Within the report there are a number of service gaps that are identified. I can’t remember quite how many there are, but one of them that I think has been recognized by the department and has been recognized in the action plan is lack of detoxification facilities. It’s been mentioned many times by Members in the House in statements and in questions.

To the Minister, I’d like to know whether or not this action plan will address that gap specifically, that we do not have detoxification facilities, and if it does not, in the future, how does the Minister intend to address that gap. Thank you.

In the action plan, detoxification, I think, is the first gap that is identified in there. Our intention is to try to have people go through detoxification without necessarily building infrastructure for them to do it in. I think the intention would be to go to more programming than anything. Also, we have some confidence that if an individual wants to quit using drugs or quit using alcohol, that they will stop and go through their own personal detoxification. We have to have some confidence that people that wish to quit drinking, will quit drinking, and that at some point down the road they could be ready for treatment. Thank you.

Another thing that I noticed, in my quick perusal of the plan, is there’s no reference to extra funding, there’s no reference to an increase in personnel. I presume this plan is going to start in 2013-14. Will there be additional funding required in the next fiscal year for both to put the plan in place and to hire extra personnel, or is it all going to be funded from within? Thank you.

For this fiscal year, ’12-13, the intention was to look at the money that we have in the various programs now, the money that we have in on-the-land programs for healing, some of the money that we get from Health Canada for wellness, and also the $6 million. It’s a total of about $9 million when you look at treatment and everything in the system. We’re thinking of looking at that money through counselling and so on, to try for us to build on this plan and then make a decision whether or not we think that if we can’t fund everything internally, then we’ll go back through the business planning process to fund the areas which we don’t think we can handle internally. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the Minister for his response. What the Minister has outlined is a good solution, to look internally first and then see whether or not you can accomplish it.

The other thing that isn’t mentioned in the actions that I have read, I don’t see a specific mention of prevention. I’d like to know from the Minister if that is a focus of this particular action plan and it just happens to be a word that isn’t in there. Is it represented by the particular actions in this action plan? Thank you.

The whole plan is all about prevention. We are trying to help people to sober up so that they lessen their use of the health

system. What we think is common knowledge is that sober people are healthier, and there are serious problems with alcohol and that it has a heavy price tag on the health system. Generally, the way we view this is that the nature of the whole action plan is going to be on prevention. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue of film tax credit comes up from time to time and it was broached to me recently. The question was, quite simply: Why doesn’t the GNWT have one and present one to industry? It really came on the heels as a reminder that Arctic Air is booking its second season. My question to the Minister of Finance is: What type of process is involved in establishing a tax credit, such as film tax credit, that would help encourage industry to invest and do work here in the Northwest Territories? The process, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’d have to look at that specific subject. We’d have to look at other jurisdictions, many of which are, in fact, removing their tax credits, look at the pros and cons and then try to factor it in and bring it forward through a business planning and budgetary process. Thank you.

Has the Department of Finance ever examined something like this type of tax credit such as the example I’ve given, a film tax credit, and furthermore, what cost does it actually affect the Government of the Northwest Territories? I mean, are we talking about fifty cent dollars? Are we talking 75, 25? I’m trying to get a sense of an example of how much it costs and affects the government’s books. Thank you.

The Department of Finance, to my knowledge, having been the Minister going on four years, has not looked specifically in any detail at a film tax credit. Thank you.