Alfred Moses

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to waive Rule 69(2) and have Bill 33, An Act to Amend the Elections and Plebiscites Act, No. 2, moved into Committee of the Whole.

---Unanimous consent granted

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister is correct in looking at alternative energy sources. A lot of those in past budgets, committee on this side had to do a lot of fighting to get some of those into the operating budgets.

We’ve got about 80 homes for sale in Inuvik. That means people are leaving and wanting to leave. They can’t pay their heating bills or their power bills because it’s too high. That’s 80 homes. That’s a lot of people leaving the community.

I’m not asking for a subsidy throughout the whole Northwest Territories. My Member’s statement and my questions today are specific to Inuvik...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that Bill 33, An Act to Amend the Elections and Plebiscites Act, No. 2, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, that’s for item number 18, not the item that we have before us.

I stated in the House before, when we had our last chief coroner’s report that was tabled in the House that it’s more than a report and it’s more than recommendations. We’re talking about people’s lives here. We’re talking about families and relatives and communities that are affected by such incidents as deaths and those kinds of things that are happening in the communities.

Would the Minister be looking to making any kind of amendments to the Coroners Act to ensure recommendations coming out of the chief coroner’s report do in fact become binding and do in fact become legislated? Thank you...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to address my questions today to the Minister of the Department of Justice in regard to the chief coroner’s office and recommendations that do come out of her reports.

I’d just like to ask the Minister, what is his department doing to address the recommendations in this year’s report that was tabled last week but also previous reports that give good recommendations to this House, and what is the department doing to address these?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank Mr. Bromley and Mrs. Groenewegen for bringing this motion forward before the House. I do understand, going through our capital budget, that there are a lot of projects on the go here. However, we also have to make decisions based on the needs and what we see as legislators as what’s coming down the pike, whether it’s education, in this case, or health or justice. But in this case it’s dealing with the high demographic of our senior populations of the Northwest Territories and to address that, the lack of infrastructure, to meet these needs.

I understand...

Thank you, Mr. Moses. I think when it comes to the costs of a life, you shouldn’t be putting financial implications on decisions that we make in this House moving forward.

As stated earlier, alcohol and drugs is a big factor in a lot of these deaths, whether it’s homicide, whether it’s suicide, whether it’s accidental. I want to know what the department is doing working either itself or, because it’s the chief coroner’s report, maybe they could take the lead in trying to address some type of media layout or some kind of awareness campaign to address the high levels of alcohol and drug use that...

In regard to working with the other departments, are any reports brought to this House or to committees or even a report given back to the coroner’s office on how those recommendations are made, because it’s just hearsay to us when we hear the Minister saying that he’s working with other departments to address these recommendations but we don’t see an action plan, we don’t see any timelines, we don’t see any measurable goals or outcomes.

Can the Minister, I guess, elaborate a little bit further in detail how he’s working with the departments to address these concerns?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last week the Minister of Justice tabled the NWT coroner’s report here in the House and it was one report that I kind of take into consideration when we’re looking at creating legislation or looking at ways we can help these affected families move forward. After he tabled the document, I was also very pleased to attend a meet and greet with the coroners of the Northwest Territories.

Currently, there are about 34 of them in the NWT doing really great work. These individuals go above and beyond the call of duty outside of a regular job in most cases. They get call-outs in...