Glen Abernethy

The priority of the most recent roundtable was to actually develop the evaluation criteria that we will use going forward, and the conversation around a definition came up again. That is our goal in that group, is to share information on different projects that are happening, to share good ideas so that people can take those good ideas back to the regions.

The main activity coming out of that is let's get this evaluation criteria in place; let's start evaluating the great success that is out there today from the NGOs, from the Aboriginal governments, from the community governments, as well as...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have already talked about this a couple of times during this particular sitting. One of the challenges we have is that we do not have a truly defined definition of what "poverty" is in the Northwest Territories, which does make it hard to evaluate any of the work that we are doing against it. We have made a commitment to work with our stakeholders to find a definition.

At the same time, during our last Anti-poverty Roundtable, the department did present a number of criteria that we are going to consider monitoring and evaluating to help us determine...

Absolutely. I will give an example. In Sahtu we had a situation where there was a tragedy in one of their communities and what was requested of us was to support a bunch of the youth to go out on the land in order to experience healing and get out of the community, which we supported fully because it was the right thing to do. It is what the community wanted. It is what the youth needed. Listening to the community is critical. We do those types of things.

Sometimes, we hear, we want something done on the land immediately. Sometimes we say, give us a couple of weeks to stabilize here. Then we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there is no formal written policy; however, it is a common long-standing practice within the health and social services system that responding to a tragedy is a priority for the Government of the Northwest Territories. Recognizing that every situation is different, that every community has a different response, what we tend to do is work with the community leadership to find out what it is they expect or what they are hoping to get from the Department of Health and Social Services when a crisis arises, and providing that service as best we can and working...

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lake, that Bill 18, An Act to Amend the Health and Social Services Professions Act, be read for the second time. This bill amends the Health and Social Services Professions Act. This bill imposes a requirement on registered members to comply with continuing competency recording requirements and authorizes inspection of those records; clarifies the nature of the registries maintained respectively by the registrar and the complaints officer, including the scope of public access to those registers and the protection of...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document entitled "Followup Letter to Oral Question 52518(2): Sahtu Regional Health Council." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the Members during Committee of the Whole are very passionate about increasing our allotment to the Anti-poverty Fund, and obviously if money were available this is certainly an area that we would like to invest, and it is part of our mandate. So hopefully in the future we will be making some additional investments, but in this particular budget we did invest money in helping seniors who are living in poverty do some renovations to their homes. We have made some other changes that are clearly beneficial to residents who are struggling with poverty to the Northwest Territories, and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories has made a commitment in its mandate to focus on mental health and addictions, to ensure access to culturallyappropriate programs and services, address gaps in services, and enhance treatment options.

We have made progress. Last November, we tabled the strategic framework, Mind and Spirit: Promoting Mental Health and Addictions Recovery. This framework sets the foundation for improvements to mental health and addictions programs and services.

Three separate action plans will be put in place to support that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Range Lake, that Bill 18, An Act to Amend the Health and Social Services Professions Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to be clear that I am not saying "no," but it is going to sound an awful lot like "no." The survey was done in 2007. There is a lot of information coming from a lot of different stakeholders about the problems of domestic violence and violence against women. We are in a fiscal environment where we have got to make sure that we are getting as much maximum benefit for every dollar we spend. I guess my question to the Member and the Members opposite is: would I be better positioned to spend money on a survey, or would I be better positioned to spend money on the family violence shelters...