Thank you, Madam Speaker. I had the opportunity to travel home to Inuvik this weekend and it was a really great visit. It was a very busy weekend, actually. I had a lot of meetings with a few organizations as well as many constituents regarding a whole bunch of different issues.
The one issue that I wanted to bring forth today that I’ve been fighting for, and a lot of Members have been fighting for here over the last 16 months, deals with mental health and education; two of our biggest components for government and probably some of our biggest cost-drivers for the budget here within the government. I heard that again when I went home this weekend. In fact, I heard that the Department of Health and the Department of Education have to do a more collaborative role of working together to address these issues. They have to address the mental health and addictions issues that are happening in the schools, but at the same time, our Health and Social Services department needs to also be proactive in educating our community.
It is Education Week and, although it is still Education Week, it doesn’t have to fall upon one department. All departments have a role in
educating our residents of the Northwest Territories into how we can better serve our residents with programs and services, and how we can better spend these dollars or help our residents through some of the programs that we have.
Further to the discussions that I had with my constituents back home, and other organizations, we talked about the funding formula. As you all know, the Beaufort-Delta region has a really high cost of living. Anywhere you travel in the Beaufort-Delta, whether it’s to Sachs Harbour, Paulatuk, over to Aklavik, Tuktoyaktuk, there is a really high cost to go and deliver services or programs. When we go through our funding formula, whether it is for health and social services, education or any other programs that we offer, it’s based on a territorial mechanism. We have to look specifically at the Beaufort-Delta region and the high cost of living and the travel that has to go in to providing those services.
When I talked to my constituents this past weekend, they re-emphasized two things: the mental health and addictions need to be addressed, and education in the schools needs to be addressed. The funding formula of how we spend dollars in the territory, the Beaufort-Delta needs to be looked at, and it needs to be addressed as well. Thank you, Madam Speaker.