Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the Minister has made a solid commitment there and I’ll look forward to working with him. We don’t have an internal auditor general, obviously, but a functional audit of a category of expenditures across government might be a wise move, especially given the potential savings involved. But the Minister has committed to come to committee to discuss the possibility of improving travel policy safeguards. So will the Minister hear from committee and include their perspectives on what should be included in that review? I appreciate the Minister’s commitments again...

Thanks. Just quickly for clarity, I assume the Minister is talking about Stanton, not Deh Cho and Sahtu which we have longer experience with. Is there anything to add on those? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Minister. I have no problem with that. The Duty Travel Policy of the FAA manual says that all travel is to be completed by the most economical and practical means available, but that only refers to ensuring best value once the decision to travel has been made. We have policy guidelines requiring senior management approval for travel to southern Canada with the advances in virtual travel through technology.

Will the Minister ask his officials to examine what controls could be put in place in the travel authorization process to ensure alternative communication means are...

Thanks for that information. What happens when we take it over in terms of costs? Do we just bill them? Does TSC just bill them as they do other departments?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is also my pleasure to recognize all the students here today and their teachers. I especially welcome those who are residents of Weledeh, which includes Ndilo, Detah and Old Town, Niven Lake, that area. Welcome.

I also would like to give special recognition to the representatives from the Public Service Alliance of Canada, and Lorraine Hewlett, who often stands up for the public interest.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks to the Minister and deputy minister. I think those comments are very useful and help fill in my understanding.

I guess my last question is, you know, I frequently heard that we need… I’m sorry. I don’t know the terminology, but is it a forensic psychiatrist or somebody who’s able to do the assessments and so on for a mental health court to be workable. Where are we on that? On having those talents ready and available within our government.

Thanks for those remarks from the Minister. I know Health is working with the Department of Justice, as well, and there are some other programs in that department working on this initiative.

I guess, just on the mental health side, I was happy to see that there is now some attempt to fund the Mental Health Action Plan that resulted from the extensive review that was done. Can this Minister tell me if that will address the needs for assessment and diagnosis and care that would be required out of mental health court, the services that would be required for a mental health court in the Northwest...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to ask a little bit about the family violence and counselling. I know we’ve had our third, sort of, Phase 3 recommendations on this area, and this year we weren’t able to advance on all of those but I think there was general agreement to them as priorities. Could I just get, maybe, an update on what we’re proposing to do in this fiscal year under consideration here in the way of addressing family violence and the Family Violence Plan, Phase 3.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think everyone is aware that we have very serious issues of mental health and addictions in the Northwest Territories, some of the highest rates in the country by far. We also have very, very high rates of recidivism, and in our corrections these are obviously the results of our history and some of the major events there. Some examples of that are residential schools and the trauma that that entailed and still does to this day, a lack of early childhood development. As a result of these sorts of things, many people are still struggling and, unfortunately, we currently...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the work being done by my colleagues here. This motion asks for the government to initiate discussions with the Government of Canada on the Mackenzie Valley Highway into the Sahtu. It asks us to begin working a lot more seriously on capacity building so that we can nail down benefits from development activities. That’s a start. Obviously, this is only a start and I hope that as we get into assessing what the impacts are and what the responses need to be, and we need to get on this, we need to think about some of the hard, cold realities that are coming out...