Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. He did confirm that some positions are deliberately left vacant to offset some of the O and M operations stuff, so why don’t we see those operations in the budget process right from the start and not put these positions out that we agree to? It’s ridiculous how we approve this budget here.

My last question is: Based on the job descriptions that departments write, how does the Minister or what is his goal or his strategy to get our educated students that have no job experience into the job system and into public service knowing that the job descriptions ask for two years’...

I know that one of our issues and our challenges that we have in the Northwest Territories is resources and infrastructure to house some of these individuals. We are going through the same thing. We also have the long-term care issues. We have an increase in our seniors population, and with that might come dementia and other areas that might require more services.

Does the government have some type of program with out-of-province jurisdictions that provide services to the GNWT? If so, how many NWT residents are accessing those southern placements? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to follow up on some of the alarming stats that were presented to us by the health authority in the Beaufort-Delta region on the amount of hours spent on counselling, the amount of no-shows, the referrals, especially the amount of new referrals. There were 699 new referrals to counselling services.

One thing that I have brought up in this House, and I’ll do it again today, is our psychiatric services in terms of assessments. Some of these clients might be going through counselling over and over again without getting the proper assessments they need because we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I should have been a little bit more clear. I was looking at psychiatric services, out-of-territory services that are provided by other government or other NGOs.

What does the Minister have planned, looking at some of the stats that we have in the Beaufort-Delta? What is his plan, working with the health authority, to address these high, direct counselling services as well as these new referrals that are putting a strain on our current counselling services that we have in the Beaufort-Delta region right now? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I’m glad the Minister brought up the Dalhousie program and gave us a little detail into how that’s working so far.

In terms of doing the assessments and if there are any residents of the NWT or clients that are going through this program that need some treatment for their psychiatric services, how many beds do we have in the Northwest Territories that would be able to house some of these individuals who might need around-the-clock services? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last month I was able to attend the AGM for the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority in Inuvik where a lot of really surprising stats caught my attention in terms of how services are brought forth within that authority, and the hard work that the staff are trying to do moving forward in terms of having to do the best they can with the resources that they receive and the funding that they receive through this government.

Some interesting stats that I’d like to share with committee, the Members here today and Cabinet were in terms of mental health and...

Yes, I am referring to all the young leaders that are currently enrolled with the Jane Glassco Northern Fellowship through the Walter & Duncan Gordon Foundation.

Aside from speaking and also speaking at the events and showing events through attending events, does this government offer any type of financial support to this foundation to support our young leaders, specifically here in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. On January 9th I was fortunate enough to attend an event here in Yellowknife acknowledging nine of our future leaders across northern Canada, of which four were from the Northwest Territories. In fact, one of them works here in the Legislative Assembly.

In 2010 was the launching of the first Jane Glassco Arctic Fellowship Program, which included 12 recipients from across northern Canada.

In January this was the second group that were recipients to the program. This fellowship is aimed at young Northerners, especially Aboriginal Northerners, aged 25 to 35 who want to...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The last question I guess I’ll have for the Minister in terms of this rebate program is: Are there any new funding dollars allocated to the film industry in terms of training and development in terms of the northern film industry people that work in this area in this industry? Is there anything that will be included in future budgets or even this budget that might enhance the products that they do and the training and skills that they do require for work here in the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Getting into more details, what type of rebate initiatives are we going to be looking at? Are we going to be looking at film training, development, at location incentives to get some of our people in the film industry labour jobs or professional development with our filmmakers, people who are already in the film industry?

Can I get more information on the incentives, rebates and costs that groups are going to be able to access? Thank you, Madam Speaker.