Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just for some clarity, there is a reference to this, in this motion, to $468,000 which I believe is the $468,000 that was identified in 8-39. Just for clarity purpose, the dollars that are there came from the federal government, and not the entire $468,000 were actually NWT dollars.

We had, out of that $498,000, when you combine the $468,000 and the $30,000 the year before, we had $198,000 of that and then $50,000 of that available to the Northwest Territories. Of that amount, $144,000 had to go to Nunavut and $105,000 had to go to the Yukon. One of the reasons the federal government gave these dollars to us is for the exact reasons that the Member is talking about, in addition to the fact that we know in Canada we have lost the one training institution that does train dental therapists and the federal government wanted the three territories to try to come up with some solutions on how to improve oral health in the Northwest Territories and also to start having some discussions on how we can facilitate some training for them.

The dollars are used and are being used as part of the Pan-Territorial Oral Health Initiative which has been going on for the two years, and from that they’re going to come up with a report that’s going to help inform decision-making as we go forward on how to improve dental therapy services but also just oral health services in the Northwest Territories as well as the other two territories.

We already do a number of things. We have $366,000 dedicated to dental therapy positions in the Northwest Territories, who are an incredibly important position who do treatment as well as public health and oral health for prevention and promotion. We do a number of things on top of that.

Dental and oral health is promoted at regional and community levels through the authorities, and programs such as Lift the Lip and Little Teeth are big campaigns that focus on teaching parents the

importance of good oral care for children zero to five, or Healthy Family programs have oral health and promotion sections, dental therapists are doing incredible work out there, community health representatives and wellness workers are involved in dental oral health prevention, regional nutritionists are doing much of this work as well. Campaigns linked to healthy eating such as Drop the Pop, promotional breastfeeding and early childhood programs are also contributing in this area. Does that mean we’re doing enough? No. We need to do more and we’ve heard that clearly.

But part of the problem with this motion that’s in front of us today is it seems to be suggesting that this $468,000 is something we should duplicate when, in fact, these dollars were not for the provision of these services but was to do an analysis and research, which concludes at the end of this fiscal year.

It is referenced in here that we should use these federal dollars that are coming as part of the $7 million. But as I indicated yesterday, the federal government put really tight limitations on how we can spend those dollars, and at this time we don’t know what those criteria are, but we do know that the three territories did put forward a recommendation for more money, of which we did not get the full funding, for health system improvement, access to specialized tertiary care and pan-territorial innovation. We don’t know that this will fit under there, so this motion might be a little on the premature side.

What we can say is, when we know what these dollars are available for, we will certainly have discussion with committee to help set our priorities. But at this time, to suggest we put $468,000 in, recognizing these tight fiscal times, also recognizing that we are doing things and that we want to do things better and we will work with the three territories to ensure that dental therapists have training available to northern residents, we are going to be voting against this motion at this time.