Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize my constituency assistant Wendy Morgan in the visitors gallery today, and with her is Mr. Tony Mammone from Calgary, with ATCO Sustainable Communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize all the Pages and especially the Pages from Yellowknife South: Benjamin Karstad, Hannah Schauerte, Kristin Chapman, Mackenzie Marriott, and also the Pages who were here last week: Ashley Stride and Kyra Hanninen. I really appreciate all the work that the Pages do here in the Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize my number one constituent, my partner, Lucyanne Kendo, and my step-daughter, Brittany Jewel. Welcome to the gallery and to the proceedings. It’s great to see you here. Mahsi.

Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize two Pages from Inuvik here today, Caitlyn Church and Ms. Olivia Inglangasuk, both of whose favourites sports are northern games. I asked them what did they like best about being here in the Legislative Assembly this week. They said it was fun and would definitely do it again. They also said you get to meet lots of people and all the important people, so I’m assuming that might be the Members. They also said that they get to go on TV a lot and you get free food. But most of all, they said they have a better understanding of how

the government works, and I just appreciate them for being here this week, and all Pages that were here. I know it was a long week and I appreciate all the hard work and effort that they did for the House here this week.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to recognize a young fellow and one of our Pages here. This young fellow and I do some physical activity in the evenings. His name is Ben Karstad. He’s one of the Pages. I just wanted to recognize him because he’s a pretty good little fellow.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Item 7, acknowledgements. Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Speaker, today I would like to acknowledge the naming of Mount Fred Andrew Sr., truly a Shuhagot’ine from Tulita. The mountain was officially announced on December 6, 2013.

Mr. Speaker, the name honours Mr. Fred Andrew Sr. for his knowledge and leadership, by guiding the U.S. army through the Mackenzie Mountains during the World War era of 1943-1944.

Today this route is now formally called the Canol Heritage Trail, considered one of the toughest hikes in the world.

Mr. Andrew is one of the many other guides who helped with the war efforts at that time.

Mahsi Cho for giving recognition to our people. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Item 8, oral questions. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First I’ll say it was my error. I think Members agreed not to ask questions today, and I completely forgot, because I would not have done such a thrusting statement on stabilization. I’m hopeful that the Finance Minister will answer it on one question only, of course.

Everyone knows that fiscal policy isn’t done by accident, and we always need a plan and the plan shouldn’t be based on luck.

Would the Minister be willing to work with all Members on this side of the House to help develop a stabilization fund for a funding plan as we look

forward to the next fiscal budget that we plan for the people of the Northwest Territories? If the answer is yes, I only need one question.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Extensive work has been done on the stabilization fund, and as we move forward with the final budget of the 17th Legislative Assembly, as

always, we are open to discussions, and in this case, yes, we would be happy to put that information on the table and engage in a discussion with the Members.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I didn’t make a Member’s statement today because I didn’t think we were doing Members’ statements, but now we’re not doing questions, so I’m going to do questions.

In response to my colleague from Range Lake’s Member’s statement about obesity and all those statistics that he put out there, I’d like to talk about smoking a little bit. I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services some questions about smoking.

I’m really glad I never started smoking, because it is a really strong addiction, and I don’t have very much willpower and I really, really, first of all, want to say that I do feel sorry for people who are addicted and would like to quit smoking but cannot.

I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services, what more can we do as a government to deter people from smoking?

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The Minister of Health, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe it was just a couple of days ago that Member Dolynny talked about some of the statistics with respect to smoking and that we are actually finally seeing a bit of a decrease in smoking rates in the Northwest Territories. Having said that, we still have higher rates than pretty much everywhere else in the country and obviously more needs to be done.

We do have some wonderful programs. We’ve all heard of Don’t Be a Butthead, and there are a number of programs out there as well. I know Mr. Moses actually referenced a number of them the other day.

Obviously, we are always open to new ideas. If committee has new ideas that they want to present

to us if they want to help us with reduced smoking in the Northwest Territories, we are always open to that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we always talk about the sin taxes. What is stopping this government from raising the tax on cigarettes so high that it would even make the most dedicated smokers rethink their habit? Thank you.

I know that in the 16th Assembly we did put a significant increase on taxes for cigarettes and in this budget we did increase the budget for loose tobacco, but as far as increased taxes on tobacco, I would certainly be willing to have that conversation with the Minister of Finance and see where we can go. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Is the Minister of Health and Social Services aware of any downside of putting a really, really deterring kind of a tax on cigarettes? Is he aware of any downside to doing that? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, off the top of my head, the only one that I could think of would actually be potential smuggling and that would be something that we would have to consider as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.