Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Member is not requesting a response from the Minister at this time. If there is anything he has a desire to respond to in this, maybe he could add it after the next Member who is going to provide general comments. Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement today, I have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. In a budget document that we have just been considering during this session, there is an item under program detail called residential care, adults and children, and that number of $45.807 million is for children and adults who are receiving care for an extended period of time to meet their physical, emotional, spiritual and psychological needs, and it includes such things as long-term care facilities, group homes for adults and residential care both inside and...

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Any response, Mr. Lafferty?

Thank you. I’ll ask Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witnesses to the table.

Minister Lafferty, for the record, could you please introduce your witnesses.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. At this time I’d like to ask the Minister if he’d like to bring witnesses into the Chamber.

Thank you. We will resume after a brief break.

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Good afternoon. I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order and ask, what is the wish of the committee? Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to talk about the Hay River Hospital. When the addition was put on the old hospital and the new hospital, it was state-of-the-art, cutting-edge technology with all of the supplies at the door of the rooms. It was an amazing day. I was there in the audience at the ribbon cutting for that new hospital.

That hospital has many happy memories – I had three children in there – and some sad memories. I said goodbye to some dear friends that were there, some elderly folks, and I even had a chance to work there and my husband worked there.

For a government that says they...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We all can speak of our elders here in this House and today I’d like to send a hello out to Mrs. Helen Kinnison in Hay River. I think of her today as I was thinking of something that I could wear to match my jacket and I found the necklace and earrings that she made for me about 20 years ago, which are made out of fish bones from fish out of Great Slave Lake that are dyed and were put together in jewelry.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I join my colleagues in recognizing Pink Shirt Day. We’re taking a stand against bullying by wearing pink today.

Pink Shirt Day had unlikely beginnings. It started with a spontaneous protest in 2007 following a bullying incident in a Nova Scotia high school. A ninth grade male student had been bullied for wearing a pink shirt, and in a gesture of solidarity, two older boys bought 50 pink shirts and gave them away to fellow students. To the organizers’ surprise, the protest made national headlines. Shortly afterward, provincial Premiers began to designate Pink Shirt...