Jane Groenewegen

The motion is being distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion. Ms. Bisaro.

That’s okay. Thank you.

I thank the Minister for that. I’ll be interested to hear the results of those pilot projects. There are clinical practice guidelines for diabetes. How do we monitor whether health authorities are following these guidelines and how do we know if our efforts to control diabetes are working? What kind of monitoring do we have?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize a friend of our family, Mr. Jeremy Bird, who works for CKLB, a resident of Yellowknife. Not in my riding, but welcome, Jeremy.

Thank you. I will now rise and report progress.

Mr. Speaker, of course, this public proceeding here is a forum as well. If there are people out there in the communities, in all of our communities that are listening to this and hearing this today and do have a problem with addictions, who have problems with alcohol and want to find a way out, who want to find a healthy, happy life, I want them to not only know they can approach this forum but that they can go to their health centre, that they can write a letter to the Minister or their MLA, they can phone us and they can tell us what they think their solution is to this problem. Thank you...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Indeed, the issue of addictions in the Northwest Territories is a very, very perplexing one, and I applaud the Minister that he is trying to do something. However, I agree with my colleague Ms. Bisaro that we have studied this issue to death.

Minister Miltenberger came to Hay River when he was doing his forum on where we should be spending money and stood up and made a very, very eloquent speech about personal responsibility. Maybe we shouldn’t be asking people who are healthy and sober what we should be doing about addictions such as the wonderful people that Mr...

Managing and preventing chronic diseases is a major issue for our health system. Diabetes is only one of our problems. What still needs to be done before a full Chronic Disease Management Model is ruled out and what are the obstacles to that rollout?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement, the Auditor General has noted that Health and Social Services did not have a territory-wide strategy to manage and prevent diabetes. That is part of the Chronic Disease Management Model which was due to be implemented this year. I’d like to ask the Minister has that happened and, if not, when will this be implemented.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. November is Diabetes Awareness Month and today, being the 1st of November, I would like to dedicate my statement to this topic. I would like to, as part of my statement, canvass the situation here in the Northwest Territories.

Among NWT seniors aged 60 and up, the rate of diabetes is over 20 percent. In 2007-2008 the NWT rate of diabetes was actually lower than Canada’s but, unfortunately, we are catching up.

There are some reasons for this. As a population, we are eating less vegetables and fruit than we used to. The decline is documented from 2003 to 2008 at the same...