Thank you, Mr. Chair. Welcome to the Minister and his staff to the House here. This is kind of our third kick at the can with the operations budget and it’s been an educational one, I think, for both the department as well as for Members of the House in terms of how we look at doing things differently or looking at things more efficiently and looking at where we can improve within the department itself.

With that said, I know this is the biggest budget in the government, but it is also one of the departments that has some of the more unique challenges that we don’t see in other departments. It is really hard to address and I commend the hardworking staff on the work that they do with the amount of dollars that we have and, as I mentioned, the challenges that we have.

With that said, before I get into some of the ongoing concerns and questions in areas that I would like to highlight moving forward, I know in the federal budget it was announced last week that all three territories are going to get a three-year funding of $70 million, so just moving forward, I want to make kind of a general comment on how those dollars will be allocated, or will something come before committee? Will committee have some type of input on looking at some of the priorities of this Legislative Assembly as a whole but also some of the initiatives that came out of standing committee moving forward?

It is always a concern for me, and something that I have tried to address and continue to address, I’m glad to see that the Mental Health Act is on the legislative list to be amended moving forward. Some concerns that I do have is that we have a lot of counsellors, 65 counsellors, but only in 19 communities. That is something that continues to stick with me, because in my discussions with the chief coroner as well as other constituents and people in the small communities, we need to address mental health issues. It is not always readily available. I appreciate the update that the Minister gave in the House yesterday on the NWT Helpline, that on March 1st it is moving to 24 hours

and staffed 24/7, so that is good news.

Something that I have kind of done on my own, working with my constituents back home that have gone to treatment, is having something in place within the government, possibly, that we have that ongoing support, ongoing treatment from the North with the individuals who are out of jurisdiction because, I guess dealing with a couple of cases here, individuals who do need treatment, sometimes they are left on their own and get stranded down south or have incidents where they have to try to find their own way back into their communities.

I am just going to stay on topic here with some of my Member’s statement today in the House in regards to oral health care. I know that we have had some money that sunsetted this year, I think $438,000 or something in that area, and with that money that is coming back, I know there was some references in other back and forth communities with the high rates of incidents of early childhood kids that are dealing with dental issues before the age of five, so we have the stats, they are known, so we just need that action plan to come forth. I think that

is a big one, because when I did more research on it, I saw that gum disease, tooth decay, can actually lead to more serious issues with the heart and other major organs.

With seniors, that issue I was dealing with in Inuvik just recently, so I looked at some of the things that we do here within our government and when I was looking on the website, I saw that we have a Seniors’ Action Plan from 2003. I think that needs to be looked at and possibly revised. Some policies that deal with seniors, whether it is with income assistance, income support or housing, or people living with disabilities, there is an opportunity to modernize that a little bit more with things that we are dealing with in today’s society, especially with the seniors population increasing.

Next month, the Minister does know, and staff probably know, that we are going to get a report back from the Office of the Auditor General in regards to child and family services recommendations that were brought forth and that is going to be interesting to see the results of that. I am not sure if I will be seeing any big dollars in the budget for that. How do they adjust those recommendations moving forward? I think there will be some action items that are going to need to be taken to task. That is why we are going through the process of possibly looking at trying to change the budgets and how to reallocate more funding dollars toward the Child and Family Services Act, especially when the Auditor General’s report comes out next month.

Something that was brought to my attention, and I know they do it here at Stanton Hospital and in some cases at the long-term care ward in Inuvik, is to deal with traditional foods. I do visits to the hospital and chat with some of the elders, but also some of the patients, and sometimes they don’t even eat because the food isn’t always up to par. That needs to be addressed and I think there has to be a better way to get some of the traditional foods in our communities, especially when we get residents from the small communities going into, say, regional centres or even here in Yellowknife, when they might not know a lot of people in the community that might be able to help and assist them.

One occurring thing that I have noticed up in the Beaufort-Delta is that there is a constant challenge with overtime and call-backs as well as authorities working in deficits every year. I know Inuvik, the Minister was up there and listened to some of the cost-saving practices that they did – and I think that this is something that needs to be adopted right across the Territories – ways that we can better improve our staffing in some of the department divisions and to deal with some of these call-backs and overtime, but some of the costs that are associated with it.

One thing that I am not sure is really taken into account here is the high cost of travel, specifically in the Beaufort-Delta in getting to the coastal communities is quite challenging at best. Even just dealing with the weather, but there is also an added cost to that moving forward.

They are all concerns, but as some of my colleagues have stated, there has been a lot of good work that has been done with the department and committee. I know the department has come before committee on numerous occasions where we have had really good debate and good discussion on a lot of issues, how do we deal with them and address them. I look forward to continuing those debates and discussions, those discussions with their partners, to come up with the best solutions for residents of the Northwest Territories.

One last thing, and colleagues have been bringing it up in the House on numerous occasions, and that is nurses in the small communities. I think we need to find a legislation that is going to work with that. I know it does deal with police presence and the RCMP presence in the small communities, but I think there is a way we need to try to adjust that, because there are mental health issues, there are a lot of health issues in the small communities that need to be addressed sooner than later.

I appreciate that there is midwifery dollars in this one. The Anti-Poverty Strategy, moving forward on that, that is really great news as well. Something that is also being reviewed, and I am glad that it is being reviewed, is the Medical Travel Policy. I know that one is always a tough one to deal with. I think we have to get something in place that is really strong and we can refer to whenever we send our residents south or even to regional centres like Yellowknife.

I guess to finish up with just translators. I know that is something that we have mentioned numerous times, possibly at every budget session, is getting proper translators for our elderly residents or our patients that only speak their own Aboriginal language. That needs to be addressed when they come in, and we have to look at the terminology. Obviously that is going to be a big, big project moving forward and I just want to bring that to the department’s attention as well.

I look forward to going through this budget and continuing the work that we have had with the department. Thank you, Mr. Chair.