Alfred Moses

I’m kind of intrigued in how the Department of Justice and Department of ECE both contributed to the Day Shelter here in Yellowknife. I believe there’s only one other Day Shelter in the Northwest Territories and that’s in Inuvik, and whether or not the department would work with the other departments in looking at accessing those funds, as well, because the cost of doing business further up north is a lot higher. So, I’m intrigued and wouldn’t mind getting more information on that, and I’ll ask the Ministers when it does become time to review this. Thank you, Mr. Chair. More of a comment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Before I begin, I’d just like to thank Mr. Dolynny and Mr. Nadli, as well as any other Members who have brought a lobbyist registry before government. I’m happy to speak on it today.

When we discussed this in committee, the first thing that came to mind was transparency and accountability on our government and our departments and how we do business throughout the Northwest Territories. The public and public offices have the right to know who is lobbying our government and who is going into contracts with our government. We need to know which groups, businesses and...

I think the concept of having a contest to get Southerners up to our regions in the NWT shows that people are interested in coming up to the North. They had over 4,500 entries just from the Facebook site as well as the radio contest. I didn’t get any statistics on how the TV program showed up.

The active group in Inuvik, the Tourism Stakeholder Committee, is also looking at doing something similar for the Aboriginal Day, Summer Solstice, as well as the Great Northern Arts Festival and our annual reindeer crossing. Would the department look at funding or look at supporting contests of a similar...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions today for the Minister of ITI in regards to some of our tourist investments and some of our tourism supports. I mentioned in my Member’s statement the Inuvik Sunrise Festival and the support and interest it got from media campaigns and Facebook. I was just looking at the numbers here, but this very creative group in Inuvik used an organization on Facebook and they garnered over 1,800 contest entries and then on the Rogers Media on the radio show they had over 2,600 entries. So, over 4,500 contest entries to get up to Inuvik to welcome back the sun.

I’d...

Thank you. Just looking at how some of these authorities run and the services and programs that each authority provides in the communities, especially in the communities when you might just have one nurse who might get a call-out at seven o’clock at night. I just want to know what the department is doing in terms of their overtime policy, which could be one of our biggest cost drivers throughout all authorities. The callbacks, overtime, people getting sick and other individuals filling in. What is the department doing in terms of their overtime policy and whether they’re going to make a strong...

[Microphone turned off] …he’d be looking at working with these organizations and fund them a little bit more from our programs. I’ve talked about program duplication, but we’ve got organizations out there that are doing really good work on behalf of government and whether the Minister would sit down with these organizations and develop some contributions where they can support these successful programs.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to table a document developed by the Mental Health Commission of Canada. It’s titled “Informing the Future: Mental Health Indicators for Canada.”

One of the Members earlier talked about nursing in the small communities. As the Minister knows, we have eight communities that don’t have nurses. I wonder if the department would be looking at changing its policy in terms of looking at trying to see if we can staff nurses in some of these communities, but if not, the amount of days that a public health nurse or a nurse would go into the community. I know that in some cases, the Minister mentioned in the House that a public health nurse will go in for two days sometimes. But I wonder if he could change the policy so that there are more...

This document, the Mental Health Indicators for Canada, will help paint a complete picture of mental health throughout this country and also here in the Northwest Territories. It’s going to allow us to tell us how well we are doing or how poorly we are doing in terms of the health system in responding to Canadians’ mental health and well-being and their needs and what we need to do to effect the change and also here in the Northwest Territories.

Will the Minister and his department look at these? There are 13 indicators. Will he and his department look at these 13 indicators, compare it to our...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple of other things I didn’t get a chance to speak to last time. In terms of mental health services, I want to get a quick update on… I’m not sure if it was a pilot project or the work that was being done with Dalhousie University in terms of telehealth for mental health counselling services. Are we still using that and is it being utilized to a degree? Thank you.