Bob Bromley

That’s an education in itself.

The other area I am wondering about, I know from my experience with the AANDC offices, that when the mine inspection division had cases to be made and took it to Justice at the federal level, they repeatedly declined to take on that legal action, and obviously this has consequences because things get worse and worse and it is a bit of a sliding slope, so I want to know that this government is preparing for that. Now, this may not be the right division for this and I would welcome the Ministers’ direction on where to bring this up, but I am looking or will be...

Thank you, Madam Chair. That makes sense to me.

I assume that integrated case management is the Justice side of things, that it’s primarily Justice staff that are working on it and it relates to the legal or, in this case, perhaps quasi-legal aspects of the case. Is that correct? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for that response. Just in terms of the variety of items that account for the 10 percent increase, I assume there’s the usual forced-growth stuff here, I know a good number of people, and utilities, et cetera. Are some of those expenses related to the new conditions of the 20-year agreement?

I’m sure that the Minister is aware of the issue. What would his proposal be?

Thanks to the Minister for that additional information. We’ve heard from departmental staff that 85 percent of children under the age of five have cavities in five teeth, very serious dental issues. I got the sense that the Minister is happy to put his additional efforts into planning and that that’s just a situation we have to live with.

Is that the position of the Minister, that he’s willing to accept that statistic and go with the resources we have and hope that we can get resources in the future? Eighty-five percent of Aboriginal children under the age of five. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister. That’s my understanding too. The clients that are accepted into transitional housing are generally not well off financially. They may have even been homeless in the recent past.

Given that situation, where does the Minister think that these people are going to transition to after just a few months? Mahsi.

To me, again, that was the biggest recommendation that came out of all the work on this in the 16th Assembly, so I’m surprised that it’s not higher on the agenda here, because I don’t think there’s much cost to that but the benefits are potentially substantial. I appreciate the Minister committing himself to look into it and I hope that it gets some action as well as looking into it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d like to speak just briefly to population health and particularly oral health. I understand that there’s $366,000, three positions with GNWT focused on that and I appreciate that. Is the dental surgery facility still operational in Hay River? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d also like to recognize a couple of Weledeh constituents, Chief Ernest Betsina and Mary Rose Sundberg. I’d also like to recognize and thank all of the folks that are working on the language groups. That’s very important work that they’re doing and I very much appreciate that. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My understanding was we wanted to make sure that people had additional supplementary benefits and health benefits coverage beyond the territorial GNWT coverage in order to protect GNWT resources, essentially third-party, and that we were going to promote that. That’s the statistic that I’m looking for.