Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Your motion is in order. To the motion.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Sunday is Remembrance Day and I’d like to take this opportunity to speak just a little bit about the veterans, starting with the veterans and the knowledge of war that I grew up with as a child.

My grandfather, Sylvanus John Vivian Cann, volunteered to serve in the First World War when he was 28 years of age. He was already married and had three small daughters. He went off to World War I, and in later years, when you have a grandfather that wore a great big, long, wide band of metal, you’re going to hear a few war stories.

I find it interesting that my grandfather’s...

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The motion is in order. To the motion.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your committee has been considering Committee Report 6-17(3), Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure Report on the August 2012 Hydraulic Fracturing Study Tour, and Committee Report 7-17(3), Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures Report on the Use of Tablet Computers in Formal Session, and I would like to report progress with 11 motions being adopted and that Committee Reports 6-17(3) and 7-17(3) are concluded. I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The motion is in order. To the motion.

Thank you. Mr. Menicoche.

I get very passionate about this topic. I apologize.

Why can’t we see it for what it is and what it is doing? If we knew there was a road washed out and people went speeding towards an open pit that would result in injury and death for sure, would we not do everything in our power to warn and prevent them from speeding over the edge? Would we not divert the road, put up barricades, warning signs, physically go out and try to do everything we could to stop them? We wouldn’t stand by and say, well, it’s just their choice to take that road.

We need to create a new norm, and we need to do it with...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to try to be concise and measured in my comments here. First of all, let me say that I do support the motion. I think that we as a government do need to do more to address a very prevalent and a very large problem in the Northwest Territories. However, there is no amount of money that this government could acquire or could spend that could address this situation in and of itself.

We have to meet people halfway. I do like the fact that this ministerial forum is going out to talk to people in the communities. We as a government have done a disservice to our...

I believe that. I have known this Minister and everyone on the other side of the House for a very long time and I do believe that, but it may involve necessarily setting something else that we do and spend money on aside in order to devote the resources that we need to this problem, because this is a pressing and critical problem which is absorbing so much of our resources. If we could curb it and stem it somehow, we could go back to doing those other things.

Will the Minister work with this side of the House to look at what things we now spend money on that are not as high a priority and could...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are, obviously, for the Minister of Health and Social Services. In preamble to my questions I want to say that the Minister of Health and Social Services is not the enemy, the Members on the other side of the House are not the enemy, the issue that we are dealing with is the enemy. I’m sorry. I am sure that there is not one person on that side of the House who does not agree with and relate to almost everything that was said on this side of the House today. This is a collective problem. We have to find a collective solution.

I would like to ask the...