David Ramsay

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just wanted to speak to the principle of the bill. I’m certainly excited at the fact that the committee is going to eventually get the Wildlife Act finally and we are going to take the bill around the Northwest Territories. I just wanted to speak a little bit about the fact that we do live in a jurisdiction that values public input and the process that’s out there. We want to ensure that it’s a fair process for everybody. Anybody that wants to provide a submission, wants to speak to the committee, we will be there to listen and observe what people are telling us.

It’s...

Mr. Speaker, the Minister is making a good case for my argument. They can’t leave the facility. That is the problem. They can’t go on a coffee break downtown. They can’t go on a lunch hour downtown or to their home to have a cigarette. They are captive employees. They are at that building for eight and sometimes 16 hours in a row. I just want to ask the Minister why can’t we set up an area on the property away from the building where, if corrections officers have a short break, they can have a cigarette. It is a stressful occupation at the best of times, Mr. Speaker. Why can’t we accommodate...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a few questions today for the Minister of Justice. I wanted to ask him about smoking by employees at the North Slave Correctional Centre. Obviously being a corrections guard is a very stressful occupation, Mr. Speaker. A year ago they did away with smoking at that facility and now, if you are a corrections guard, you can’t smoke on the property at all, even though shifts are eight hours in duration and sometimes folks work double shifts. But other staff are allowed to smoke. If you look downtown, other government employees are allowed to just simply go outside...

Mr. Speaker, what response is the Minister referring to, when it was sent and who it was sent to and when this meeting supposedly took place? I would like to ask the Minister those questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. There have been a number of questions posed to the Minister over the past couple of weeks in regard to naturopathic medicine and the licensing of that practice in the Northwest Territories. I would like to continue on that vein, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to begin by asking the Minister -- she has been hard to get a commitment out of, but I am going to try again today to get a commitment out of her -- can the Minister provide Members of this House with any correspondence she sent back to inquiries she...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to recognize Dr. Nicole Redvers, a naturopathic doctor and constituent of Kam Lake. I’ll be having an acknowledgement for her later on today.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Whether or not somebody can be called a doctor, that is not the question that I asked the Minister. I am not sure why she had to say that again.

Anyway, getting back to the question about correspondence back to the naturopathic doctors who have inquired about licensing in the Northwest Territories, I’d like to ask the Minister, has the Minister signed any letter going back to the naturopathic doctors in terms of licensing in the Northwest Territories. If she hasn’t, when will she? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I wasn’t sure if I heard her say the meeting was held or wasn’t held, but would the Minister commit to sitting down face to face with her officials, the deputy minister, with the naturopathic doctors to move their concerns forward? Will she commit to that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to acknowledge Dr. Nicole Redvers, naturopathic doctor. Nicole was born in Hay River, Northwest Territories, and raised in Fort Resolution and in Hay River. She graduated from Diamond Jenness Secondary School in 2000.

Ms. Redvers graduated from the University of Lethbridge where she completed a Bachelor of Science Degree with premedical requirements in 2004. She attended the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine, Canada’s premier institute for education and research in naturopathic medicine, one of seven accredited schools in North America...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Health and Social Services getting back to my Member’s statement where I talked again about the closure of the Edmonton City Centre Airport.

There’s been one runway closed there, the one that had instrumentation available. Now when bad weather takes place in Edmonton, medevac flights from the Northwest Territories are being diverted to the International Airport. I’m aware of one incident where a medevac patient spent two hours awaiting ground ambulance transport into the emergency room in the city of Edmonton. I’d like to ask...