Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the new Minister of Health and Social Services, with my congratulations, and it follows up on my Member’s statement on the need for a treatment centre or not within the Northwest Territories.

Does the Minister agree that the need for a drug and alcohol treatment centre in the NWT, which means the allocation of substantial funding and efforts, versus focusing on other programs and accessing southern institutions, remains unclear and needs attention and focus to be resolved? Mahsi.

Thank you. On our trip to North Dakota, we saw that fracking requires a huge number of trucks; so many trucks that they were wearing 10-inch-deep ruts in the asphalt and causing the state to go to concrete road construction at substantial cost. Now this government is promoting fracking for the Sahtu.

How does the Minister plan to ensure the public roads we have already built are not destroyed and the public is not paying for roads and repairs that should be paid for by the extraction industry? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Transportation. I recognize that the Minister is quite new to this position, and I’d like to start by offering my congratulations, and I hope he’s ready to get on with things in his new role. My questions are on the issue of public highways and what happens when resource exploitation puts extra pressure on them. My constituents on the Ingraham Trail are concerned that the secondary winter road to the diamond mines may not be built this year. They are concerned that this will cause an increase in truck traffic on the Ingraham...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last night I attended, as did the Member for Frame Lake, an event sponsored by the local chapter of the Council of Canadians, a national non-profit group supported not by governments or corporations, but by individual citizens in Canada. The event featured a talk by Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the council.

Maude Barlow is an amazing person, the recipient of 11 honourary doctorates and untold awards and recognitions. She recently served as the United Nations first senior advisor on water issues. During this term, in July 2010, through Resolution 64/292, the...

Thanks very much, Madam Chair. I ended with the query about follow-up with this legislation. Given that it is stepping out in a new way in how we run plebiscites across the Northwest Territories and it’s a departure, has the Member considered any follow-up, working with the appropriate authorities for follow-up and monitoring and evaluation to see how this works and be prepared to consider amendments if deemed to be appropriate? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Welcome to the Member for Sahtu and his proposed legislation. I think the first relevant fact for me is we’re talking about the sale of a government-controlled substance. So this is already sort of beyond the course of normal business. So we are used to specific regulations and guidance being put forward on controlled substances like liquor. I thought it was very interesting. I was not on the committee and I did not travel, but I’ve been listening closely to the committee and found it interesting that they found considerable merit in both the pros and cons to the...

If we’re going to make progress on this, we need to be able to define what we think success looks like and find a way to measure it.

Could the Minister explain how the department currently defines and measures success in terms of addictions treatment? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement from earlier today. Of course, we’re focusing on treatment for alcohol and drug addictions, so my questions will be for the Minister of Health and Social Services. We’ve heard the Minister explain in the past that there are many options for treatment in the South. Could the Minister explain how the department selects these addictions treatment centres? In other words, how does the department decide which are eligible and which are not?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think this is a bold and innovative approach to a situation here. I also agree with a lot of the comments I’ve heard, that we need a more comprehensive solution that deals with the health of people. So that this becomes a moot issue, but as we heard earlier today in the House, that is a huge and challenging and long-term undertaking. Whereas, this is a pretty quick piece of action that can help provide some alleviation while we do that more comprehensive work. So on that basis, I also will be supporting the bill. Mahsi.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks to Mr. Yakeleya. Of course, we know the results are vastly increased consumption leading to increases in crime and, ultimately, if this continues, and we’re talking about orders of magnitude increases in consumption here and family violence and addictions and so on, and I think that’s fundamentally the motivating factors that are causing people in the Sahtu to speak out so clearly here. I guess I’ve been convinced. I’ve listened closely to concerns about improperly curtailing businesses involved in the sale of liquor and I’m convinced by our legal advisors...