Bob Bromley

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Deputy Premier’s remarks there. They are right on. I appreciate that commitment. I am, indeed, interested in all MLAs’ travel but, once again, many things are left out frequently. For example, when the Minister travels, there are events hosted by the Minister and also, of course, when that happens, there are consultants there to help arrange those and so on.

Will the Premier commit to also looking at including all of those costs so that when we report Ministerial travel costs, we really do have the full costs? I ask this because constituents and the public are...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the interests of transparency and accountability for the expense of major public dollars, I will ask the Deputy Premier questions on the significant cost of travel by elected officials and public servants.

Travel by Ministers alone in 2009-2010, in the first three months of 2012 totalled three-quarters of a million dollars. Quarterly reports are publicly available, which document the travel costs of Ministers, but we know that committee members also travel with Ministers. Whether these costs come from ministerial or committee budgets is all the same to the taxpayer...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to salute the work done last week at Made in the North, a three-day forum on adult learning, literacy and skills development organized by the NWT, Yukon and Nunavut literacy councils. More than 150 participants representing the three territories, Newfoundland and Labrador and other provinces, and the Government of Canada attended. Minister Lafferty welcomed the forum members and gave much appreciated remarks on the importance of literacy and skill development.

Forum attendees shared innovations in adult learning practices, policies and programs through four...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks again to the Minister. I’m still shaking my head over this $6 million and now we have to go discuss it with a bunch of people on whether to make this operational or not, given the demands on our infrastructure dollars. I’m shaking my head.

My last question is: Are other regions in the NWT in the same situation as this Fort Smith facility? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for those comments. Indeed, it is a principle to try and place people as close to home as possible, obviously, when we have a facility, but no way of operating it that’s not happening. So I appreciate the Minister is going to do something about this. My next question is when? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I’d like to just note that many of my constituents work on behalf of elders across the Northwest Territories, and certainly many of them and many of our NWT seniors are concerned about the lack of dementia facilities and services, particularly in the small communities.

So I’d like to start by asking the Minister when will full dementia facilities be available in small community health facilities across the NWT. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for those comments. The essence of the problem here is that the Minister’s department has made an exceptional turnaround in the claims experience and yet the authorities are not. I’d like to ask, is this a confusion of lines of authority here? What are the lines of authority to deal with this issue? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up from my Member’s statement today with questions to the Minister of Health and Social Services. In my statement I pointed out the almost universal improvement in departmental claims experience, including the Department of Health and Social Services which dropped from 39 percent of claims down to less than 1 percent, but with the prominent exception of our health authorities, including Yellowknife and Stanton and with the exception of the Sahtu, which has stayed very low.

Is the Minister aware of this situation and is it being treated as a priority...

We pay penalties as one government, but clearly regional health authorities’ failure to deliver safety programs and manage claims is generating these penalties now.

I’ll have questions for the Minister of Health regarding management of claims for performance by regional authorities. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be supporting this motion and I want to underscore and support my colleague and thank her and second her for bringing this motion forward. The search and rescue is, obviously, critical and timing is of the essence.

As many of us know – not all of us – it used to be that search and rescue was done pretty much by local providers, air charter services, people with knowledge of travelling on the land and so forth. Over time it sort of became a more bureaucratic approach and things were based further and further away. Finally, far to the southeast of Canada. This is...