Mr. Speaker, thanks again to the Minister’s commitment. I appreciate that. I do note that this year’s travel budget projections are slightly down from last year’s, in line with what the Minister was saying. The Minister will acknowledge that $17 million in annual travel costs is a big bill for half of our civil service. Even an efficiency of 10 percent would free up major dollars for other needs. Some departments seem to have extraordinarily high travel costs, in comparison to others, with no obvious explanation. We need a challenge and verification method for ensuring travel is being prudently purchased.

How does the Minister responsible for the FAA ensure this is taking place, and what would be the process for a critical review? And I think the Minister has started on that. Thank you.

Thank you. This is a big territory, 1.3 million square miles. A lot of it is not connected by road. We have enormous costs to do the jobs necessary. We’ve also made a commitment in this House to support all the communities. We’ve made a commitment in this House and this government to support consultation, community visits, getting the government out of Yellowknife to the people.

We appreciate the need for using technology like telehealth and those types of things. The Mackenzie Valley fibre optic line, we believe, will improve the efficiencies of the health system, it will improve and enable us to do the things that the Member is talking about, things like videoconferencing without any concern about bandwidth, that type of thing.

We are starting a budget process again. We’re going to take this to refocusing of that commitment, and if there’s a concern by the Member’s office or through the respective committees to review travel, of course, we are fully committed to working with committees, as well, to identify areas of concern. If travel is one of them, then we will work with committee and try to sort those out. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the Minister has made a solid commitment there and I’ll look forward to working with him. We don’t have an internal auditor general, obviously, but a functional audit of a category of expenditures across government might be a wise move, especially given the potential savings involved. But the Minister has committed to come to committee to discuss the possibility of improving travel policy safeguards. So will the Minister hear from committee and include their perspectives on what

should be included in that review? I appreciate the Minister’s commitments again. Thank you.

Thank you. The commitment was, of course, that if the committee identifies an issue and they want myself, as Finance Minister, or other Ministers to appear before them and discuss a particular issue, of course we are there to work with committees as with all or any issues. If travel is one of them, we’ll do that, keeping in mind a lot of the conditions, but we can have that full and frank discussion with committee about the type of travel, the amount of travel, the cost of travel, the reason for travel and all those types of things. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the news today I read, in the most recent study, that obesity rates are at historic levels in Canada. So that kind of got me going, especially after discussions yesterday with the Department of Health and Social Services. Then, upon further research, I saw in the Stats Canada 2004 report, there were red flags that were showing that over the past 25 years, since 2004, there was a dramatic increase in obesity rates. Now, nine years later, the Northwest Territories and the Maritimes are recognized in this report as having the highest rates of obesity and they’re at historic levels. Now, if those red flags weren’t addressed in 2004, they’ve surely got to be addressed now. So my questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services.

I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services, based on this new report that came out and the new findings of the new studies, what is this Minister doing to address the historic rates of obesity here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Health and Social Services leads a Healthy Choices Framework, since 2003-04 approximately, when those stats came out. It’s a partnership between ourselves, Education, MACA, Department of Justice and Department of Transportation, and it is to coordinate several of the GNWT’s programs and services related to health, safety and active living. Thank you.

Thank you. That report that gave us the red flag came out about 2004. We do have the Healthy Choices Framework to try to address it, but where are we at right now in the Northwest Territories? We’re at historic rates and I’d like to

ask the Minister, what is this Minister doing to work with his federal counterparts to address these historic rates so that we can start taking care of our residents as obesity leads to a lot of chronic disease. As I mentioned yesterday, 70 percent of all deaths are related to chronic disease. What is the Minister of Health and Social Services doing to work with his federal counterparts to address these issues? Thank you.

Thank you. It is a national issue, no question about it. As a territorial government and as a territory we do participate with the other provincial and also the federal Department of Health in the healthy weight work throughout the territory. Right now the next Healthy Weights Conference is in Newfoundland. We had requested that the Healthy Weights Conference be brought to Yellowknife. I had recently discussed that possibility with the Minister and there’s an indication that we would get in line like everyone else and that we might be next after Newfoundland, but Newfoundland was decided a couple of years ago. So we will be going to the conference to discuss healthy weights of Canadians across the country with other jurisdictions. Thank you.

Thank you. I look forward to getting feedback and comments on that meeting because, as you know, health, fitness, and active living are all part of my campaign. I just want to know if the Minister will be looking at developing a specific program, much like the Department of Justice has with the Not Us! campaign, to create awareness, education and to help defer some of our criminal practices in the communities. Would the Minister look at creating some type of similar program to address obesity, specifically promoting active living, getting people active in the communities and put some funding dollars towards that that would decrease some of those findings? Would he look at the possibility of developing some type of program? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Colleagues, before we go on today, the preamble on the questioning is a little bit too long. I know you are trying to make your point and that, but shorten it up. Members’ statements, that’s what your Member’s statement is for. So questioning on your oral questions to Ministers. Thank you. Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the coordination of that framework activity does look at physical activity, mental wellness, exercise and healthy eating, all of the various areas. We work with the Department of Education in trying to promote healthy foods in the schools, we have Drop the Pop and so on. So those are some of the activities that I can run through quickly. In general, what we’re asking people, as we

discuss, is to eat healthy, exercise, drink responsibly and don’t smoke. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. He did mention working with Education. Our Minister of Education has mentioned trying to bring elders into the schools. Would the Minister of Health and Social Services look at the options of possibly bringing fitness instructors into the schools to create some type of fitness programs that can be done during lunch times, before school or after school? Thank you.

Thank you. I think that is something that we can certainly discuss with the Department of Education, but in this framework, MACA has afterschool physical activity programs. They work with the NWT Recreation and Parks Association for making people active. They have the youth sports events, programs, and they have the High Performance Athlete Grant. So all of those, trying to introduce activity into the schools and working within this Healthy Choices Framework. A lot of the activity responsibilities have been given to the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

My questions are to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I did a Member’s statement, as other Members talked about, on the Anti-Bullying Campaign. I want to ask the Minister of Education, what percentage of Aboriginal cultural content is in our education system.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. When we talk about the Education system in the Northwest Territories, it covers everyone in the Northwest Territories. The Aboriginal content the Member is referring to, I need to get the detailed stats on that. I don’t have it in front of me but I can provide it to Members.

Certainly, the Minister is right that it covers everybody; however, in our small Aboriginal communities, about 90, close to 100 percent of the education is geared to Aboriginal students. I want to ask the Minister, when he does his research, can he look at how many, what type of Aboriginal contexts are in there that would be related to the people in that specific area or school.

Part of the education renewal I talked about in particular in this House, there are six different pillars. One of the pillars is the small schools, how we can provide further enhancing the programing into the schools and the funding formula attached to that. Obviously, there will be numerous discussions pertaining to that Aboriginal content. The smallest communities, when we talk about capital and programming and so forth, it’s all based on enrolment. I have instructed my department to look thoroughly about how we can improve that programming. We will be focusing on the small community schools. That is one of our pillars as we move forward.

I, again, look forward to some of the information that the Minister is going to bring forward to us. I want to talk about the Aboriginal culture and building the bridge for the new type of academic western type of learning. I want to know how that bridge is being formed in our small communities, and that the Aboriginal culture is certainly at the foremost and at the base of our education in our schools.