Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to make reference back to the Caucus priorities set forth by the 17th Legislative Assembly. One component that I personally thought was missing was the component to honour our youth, and, actually, it is really great to see a strong contingent of youth in our gallery today. I would like to take this opportunity just to reassure the youth of the Northwest Territories, and reassure all those organizations that do great work with youth in the Northwest Territories that it is on our agenda within certain departments, as you heard today in the Minister’s...

Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services, for that answer. My last question is in regard to the same thing with the programming. We have a lot of programs for people that are institutionalized. We have a lot of programming for people who are incarcerated in the Northwest Territories. There is a really good article about it today in the News/North. For those that aren’t in those institutions or that are in the community that are suffering and aren’t getting those services, what are the programs in place for those individuals in the communities? Thank you.

Thank you for that information, Minister of Housing. My final question is: We do have some tenants that have really high arrears. Is there an action plan to assist those that feel they don’t have a chance to get out of those arrears? Is there a program or some kind of policy in place that will help those that are beyond what they can pay? Thank you.

That sounds like a good plan in the broad scope of things. However, we do know that some tenants will not go and speak to their LHOs. Is there a plan in place for the LHOs? I know they do a lot of work and we don’t want to overburden them, but is there a plan in place to go and speak to the tenants in their home, especially the ones that might be mobile enough or also with some language barriers? Is there a plan in place to do an outreach program to go and speak with the tenants? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to talk about a great program that’s been initiated by a few departments through the Healthy Choices Framework a couple of years ago that did result from some tragic incidents throughout the Northwest Territories and that we still see today, and that is dealing with drugs in our communities.

The Not Us! Campaign is a very successful campaign initiated through the Department of Justice. It has partners of the RCMP, Health and Social Services, Education, Culture and Employment, MACA and the Executive. It is a program that fights the drugs in our communities...

No further questions. I just think it would be in the best interest of both departments to work together on how we can serve, especially with a lot of the discussions earlier today on mental health and addictions, how we incarcerate a lot of people into the systems. That when we do build facilities, we offer buildings that offer services that would cut down our costs that can go into other areas. Just a general comment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just one last further question here. The Department of Health and Social Services, there are programs out there with other departments that make it so people have to go through the process, go through the counseling to get assistance; specifically, Housing, ECE and some Justice for rehabilitation. However, some of those people that are going through it don’t necessarily take it serious or are making the backlog for the people that really do need it. Is the Minister of Health and Social Services willing to come up with a plan to offset those issues so that the people in...

I’m glad to hear that the department is taking a proactive approach in education for prevention and awareness. However, right now, as I mentioned earlier in my two questions, we do have a waiting list, especially in Inuvik. The waiting list for anyone to get counselling is about three months and it is something that needs to be done now to address those issues. We will be coming to a new fiscal year in 2012-13. I was wondering if there was anything on the horizon in the fiscal operations O and M budget within the Department of Health and Social Services to offset those issues of our workers...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question today is dealing with my Member’s statement that I gave yesterday in dealing with mental health and addictions. We have had a lot of discussion here today on infrastructure and some new capital projects that are coming to the Northwest Territories. Alongside with that, unfortunately, we do get a lot of health and social issues that do come with these big capital projects.

My question is for the Minister of Health and Social Services and deals with mental health programs and infrastructure. What is the plan to fix the lack of services that we have in some of...

My next question is: Come April 1st, the end of the fiscal year, any tenants across the Northwest Territories who have not taken that initiative to get on a payment plan, what is the course of action that the Housing Corporation is going to take for those who have not honoured this agreement that the Minister has put forth? Thank you.