Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement today I was talking about the fact that in the Northwest Territories it is natural, it is common, and it is a good thing that family members, extended family members will intervene in a situation where a child may be at risk, a family may be in crisis. It is not always the government that has the opportunity to observe or respond to those kinds of needs. The problem is that when someone does this on their own initiative, it then absolves the government of having to take any responsibility for the situation. The reality is it costs...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The wish of the committee is to deal with those three items that you just listed in that order. Thank you.

Is the Minister aware, in his role as Minister of Education as well, of any campaign in the schools to warn children, young people, of the threat of being drugged by someone else? I understand that we talk to young people about the negative effect of taking drugs and what can happen to them, but how do we teach them to protect themselves from somebody who would drug them and subsequently hurt them and assault them in some way?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today in my Member’s statement I talked about something that is not easy to talk about because it’s something that is in our communities, but it is a very insidious thing and it’s hard to get information about it. It’s hard to create awareness, because I personally have not heard of any public campaign to bring awareness of this issue of this Rohypnol or date rape drug. Mr. Speaker, I am going to direct my questions today to the Minister of Justice.

Mr. Speaker, the thing that makes this so difficult is the combination of factors that allow this crime to be...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Education if this government would be amenable or open to the idea of funding some kind of awareness campaign and, hand in hand with that, a support group. My fear is that these incidents happen in isolation and no one ever knows anybody else that it happened to. They have absolutely no support. The isolation from an event like this and the fallout throughout the rest of their life thinking about this is one of the most damaging things. Certainly the act of violence or assault is very, very difficult too...

A lot of the awareness that is out there right now is to try to make young people aware of the dangers of drugs, and they are drugs that people sell to them that these people take. But, Mr. Speaker, this date rape drug is something quite different in the fact that a person could just be innocently at a social function or at a public establishment and could have this put right into their drink. Mr. Speaker, so this is a little bit different; the awareness on this. The Minister mentions victims services. I would like to know are the victims services committees in the communities specifically...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about something today. I know we’re celebrating our youth and all the good news stories, but Mr. Speaker, I want to speak about something today that, I think, needs to be brought up in a public forum and we need to create public awareness.

Mr. Speaker, many of us are parents and we do everything we can to protect our children, but, Mr. Speaker, at a certain age youth can be a danger to themselves. It’s a time when they are trying to assert power and control over their own decisions, and if we can keep them safe and provide guidance about wise...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that we report progress.

---Carried

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If this has not already happened, and I would assume that stakeholders such as the NWT Council for Persons with Disabilities, the NWT Seniors’ Society, the NWT Association for Communities, I would assume these are stakeholders that would have been consulted when looking at this act. I would ask the Minister if he would also be able to provide for this House a list of people who would have participated in consideration of the revisions to this act.

The unfair part of this act is the fact that if the property is shared or partly owned by someone who is not qualifying under the tax relief program, that the entire property becomes disqualified. I’d like to ask the Minister if he’s familiar enough with some of the work that’s being done with this legislation to tell us if the government has an idea about how they might be able to do this; like, for example, on a prorated basis. The property’s owned by two people, one is disabled, one is not. Would the tax relief apply to 50 percent of the property taxes? Would that be something that’s being...