Bob Bromley

For the sake of our young families, I hope the Minister will confirm real progress and certainty on moving forward with territorial midwifery in Yellowknife soon. I will have questions. Mahsi.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The deputy minister mentioned 25 percent savings, 75 cents instead of a dollar. Just to help the Minister out with that complex math, with a dollar a litre and it’s 80 percent, then that’s 20 percent savings and we’re putting 10 percent into these other initiatives. I guess I’d like to ask the Minister to commit, should these savings be realized, that he bumps up any savings in this amount committed and allocated to renewable energy and energy efficiency such as we’re doing with the 10 percent we are very sure we’re going to get, really make that commitment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have been talking about a territory-wide midwife program for a long time now. Originally we had programs in Fort Smith and Yellowknife, but the Yellowknife program was dropped with a plan to beef up the program in the Minister’s home community of Fort Smith.

The plan was to expand the Fort Smith program to Hay River, the Beau-Del, Behchoko and Yellowknife. A start was made and we have since seen progress in Hay River and Fort Smith. However, the Minister reports that the health authorities in the Beau-Del decided that instead of a midwifery program they would maintain...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just had one other set of questions here. I’m wondering when the Minister will be purchasing the $20 million worth of diesel fuel for this purpose.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The deputy minister has just said exactly what I said, albeit in more flowery terms. This is extremely disappointing. We have been trying to get this approved, the Child and Family Services Information System, as the Minister of Health knows, since the 16th Assembly. It was recognized that our child and family services workers are so flummoxed by this useless piece of software that they spend times driven to smoking, leaving the building and going out to smoke, because this is a useless piece of software that we have and it’s affecting the delivery of child and family...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to start by recognizing the Minister’s call for all people to be working on this, all those of us in authority, and have some responsibility for doing work on this. I think, in this particular case, I know when I, along with my colleagues Bisaro and Hawkins, in this case, attended the latest AGM of NWT council, I was a little bit shocked. I think Mr. Moses expressed disappointment that I felt in myself for not being more on top of that.

I’m glad to hear the Minister has already been working with the council and community councils in addressing many of the issues...

WHEREAS Canada ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities in 2010;

AND WHEREAS persons with disabilities have the right to be treated equally, with dignity and respect;

AND WHEREAS almost 15 percent of the population of the NWT lives with a disability, which translates to a conservative 6,000 people, with challenges in every community;

AND WHEREAS an additional one in nine people in the NWT are impacted by a disability as family members and caregivers;

AND WHEREAS people with disabilities are at higher risk for neglect, abuse, poverty, isolation, depression...

I am calling for a cross-departmental response here and headed up by the Housing Corporation, although they are primarily capital approach, they certainly have a lot of housing programs. Housing First recognizes that the first step to helping homeless people out of poverty is to put a roof over their heads. Only then can the identifying problems that lead to homelessness be addressed effectively, sort of a step number two. In some areas civil society contributes to the caring of a family with a Housing First client to help provide social supports.

I’d like to ask the Minister, how is he working...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are also for Minister McLeod today. The recent reports from the YWCA in Yellowknife show that there are 64 families in emergency and transitional housing in the last fiscal year with more than 100 families on the waiting list, 50 women waiting to get into Lynn’s Place here in Yellowknife, 152 families on the waiting list to get into Yellowknife Housing Authority’s housing units. So these are obviously appalling numbers. Housing First programs are getting lots of kudos as a housing solution across North America.

I’m wondering: what is the Minister’s...

Given that the whole government can see this except this side of the House, I’m wondering if the Minister could share with us what are the major elements that the paper will address when finally delivered. Mahsi.