Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to begin with some caution, I guess. I know the Minister is trying to streamline and provide quality service by having standardized levels of servicing in all our regions. I guess the concern that he heard when he traveled with me to Fort Simpson was there is still a need for some type of regional autonomy, community councils, along with some type of appointed members do want to still have their concerns at some board type level. I will just mention that to him again.

Recently, of course, I just spoke in the House about an elder being misdiagnosed, and just reviewing my notes, it has happened before. There were actually two incidents in Wrigley, two young girls in 2005 had their legs broken and weren’t diagnosed until about four days later. These types of things are continuing. I’ll ask the Minister in the House, I know that he just tabled a 25-year report. I haven’t had a chance to look at it, but it’s just about how do we track our clients being misdiagnosed and is one region higher than the other. That kind of approach will help our system keep track of how things are done, because, actually, when there’s a follow-up incident or follow-up investigation, we all should learn from it, much like I guess the coroner’s office does. How do we learn from this incident? How do we make it better for everybody else. Most recently, the elder that had cracked her hip in Fort Simpson, she spent four days at home before she was diagnosed with a broken hip and was medevaced to Yellowknife to receive the proper care and attention that she deserved. But it’s about examining that. In fact, the family told me that to raise it in the House only so that it doesn’t happen to somebody else again. It’s very stressing. Her children had to work and take time off from work to take care of her and that kind of stuff. If we had the proper procedures, I believe that she could have received her attention sooner.

On a similar note, it’s the care and attention that Wrigley residents want as well. They want consistent care and attention, that’s why they’re consistently asking for full-time nursing services in Wrigley. I spoke about two young girls that broke their legs in 2005, only because there wasn’t a certified nurse on site to make the call at that time. In fact, it was almost the fifth day by the time the nurse got there because there was a one day delay by fog. There’s an incident there. Then in 2009 in the community of Wrigley, out of 175 residents, 100 of them suffered from flu-like symptoms and with nursing in the community, that kind of stuff could have been monitored, picked up early enough. In fact, that lasted a week long. The Minister assures me, I think he said the nurse goes in there weekly, but for whatever reason the nurse didn’t go in there.

The only reason we sent medical staff in there was the chief and council had to get hold of Indian Affairs at that time, their health department, and they contacted us to send in medical staff to see what’s going on with these 100 residents that had flu-like symptoms. It was pretty scary. It was right in the midst of the bird flu scare at that time, as well, so nobody knew what was going on. It was only because we didn’t have staff on the ground.

We’ve been making progress towards that. We’ve got full-time dedicated RCMP services up there. I do know that Fort Simpson has dedicated staff that go into Wrigley as well. I’m hoping that we can arrange things so that these full-time paid positions can eventually relocate to Wrigley. I’ve been pressing the case that increased development in the Sahtu is increasing the pressures of the community as well. I think that was the same in about 1973 when the first Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline was planned. There was a highway going into Wrigley so everybody knew the increased pressures of modernization, as it were, I guess, so there was nursing in Wrigley and there was actually a staff RCMP housing plus a small jail there in Wrigley at that time. But over the years the pipeline didn’t go and so those services were withdrawn.

But having professional services there at that time made it a vibrant and healthy community, and now that those professional services are gone, the policing services, the community is really, really struggling at this point. The Minister spoke about the community wellness plan. With great effort they do have a community wellness plan, but I feel that without policing or nursing there that the wellness plan is not going to have a good chance of succeeding. At any rate, I’m pressing the case there that with increased development that we should restore their services to the community because it’s only going to get worse in the long term because with the development of the Sahtu it’s not only the winter roads now. They’re talking about increasing the pipeline, the oil rigs, or the Sahtu connecting to the existing Enbridge pipeline. There might even be two pipelines. It’s going to have a huge impact on the community.

With that, those are my opening comments. Thank you.