David Ramsay

Thank you, Mr. Chair. How is prenatal care coordinated in the NWT today? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to support the motion that is before us for many of the reasons my colleagues have talked about. With all due respect, I think to my colleague from the Sahtu and others, I know these are regional positions, but I have been consistent with challenging the government on job position growth and I am believer, Mr. Chairman, that the government has a systemic inability to manage its human resources, always has had and continues to have. We really need to focus more on the future and come up with a comprehensive plan.

What I see happening, Mr. Chairman, is the...

Thank you. I'd like to call Committee of the Whole to order and ask what is the wish of the committee. Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I request unanimous consent to return to item 15 on the Order Paper.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I have mentioned, in the Department of Human Resources there are six managers managing six people. I would like to see somewhere….I know it is not mentioned in the Hackett report, but how can we keep hiring manager-type positions, positions where we are going to have to pay more to have these folks employed at Human Resources? Why do they all have to be management positions? What is the ratio of management positions in Human Resources to actual on-the-ground employees in that department? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask questions today to the Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Dent. Over the past few weeks, there have been a number of jobs advertised in the local media. Mr. Speaker, one of my favourites was manager of total rewards. It got me to thinking that perhaps the employees of the government were accumulating points to redeem for some toasters, camcorders or iPods, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister responsible for Human Resources, a department that has, as I mentioned the other day in the House, six managers managing six people. Of these new...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, I want to join my colleagues in speaking about alcohol and its impact on the lives of residents here in the Northwest Territories. Mr. Speaker, as a government, we’ve had much discussion surrounding alcohol and other addictions and the services we provide to residents. Mr. Speaker, we have to do more.

The common denominator in family breakdown, family violence, violent crime and the segue into other addictions is alcohol. As a society, we have normalized the consumption of alcoholic beverages to the point where much of our leisure type of activity involves...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is good. The base review is going to be conducted at Stanton, but is there also going to be a base review done in the Beaufort-Delta and the Sahtu as well? Again, it is a systemic problem here. It is one that recurs over and over again. If boards are unable to manage what they have, then there has to be a reason for that. Is it mismanagement? Is it underfunding? What would the Minister attribute the chronic deficit situation seen in the Beaufort-Delta, the Sahtu and here at Stanton too? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

That is good. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted a little bit more information on the Northern Women’s Health Program, $116,000. It looks like that is a PY. I am just wondering how that position would relate to the Aboriginal Wellness Program.