Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker and colleagues. I’m not sure how that would compete with Don’t Be a Boozehound, but we need to do a concerted and focussed and well-resourced campaign and to engage everybody in our communities and everybody in the Territories to say that we have zero tolerance for alcohol abuse and negative effects of alcohol. Mr. Speaker, I would like to invite the leaders and everyone in our territory to join us in this campaign. Thank you.

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Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a question on page 16 about the increased funding for court services. It states there that it is for the increased cost due to higher utilization. I am wondering if the Minister could tell us as to why there is higher utilization of court services.

So would that legislation then work for all the communities? So the GNWT will legislate themselves into this responsibility, basically.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to add a few comments. Every once in a while we catch this wave of trying to slash or trying to make a point about our public service, somehow sort of creating an image of it being out of control, it is too fat, it should be cut, and look for value for money and such. I guess in a certain context we have to try to be efficient and such, but I don’t know where that really comes from, because I think maybe the suggestion might be we should all get out of this glass building here and go to communities and offices and see what the government workers are doing....

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to join the colleagues here and second this very important motion. Mr. Speaker, I speak not only as a Member of this Legislature, but also as someone who has experienced the negative effects of alcohol abuse and what that can do to a family, and also as someone who has supported someone to a very successful road to recovery from alcoholism. Also, I speak as somebody who, like the Member for Hay River South and everyone else here, has suffered from the negative impacts of alcohol on our people.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is useful to show that we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister is doing something that this government gets criticized for, which is that people out there don’t see that this government is taking this issue seriously or that there is a clear, precise and simple, or easy to understand message about what we are doing that will tie together all of the enforcement activities…

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll make it short. We’ve been talking about the theme of denormalizing the use of alcohol and in the past there are so many different aspects to this issue, but I’d like to ask the Minister of Health whether or not the government will undertake a concerted effort to come up with a campaign to denormalize abuse of alcohol in a way that the successful Don’t Be a Butthead campaign has been able to do? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the past, the government provided funding for private sectors to hire summer students. I’m just wondering if that's included in the progressive employment or the other category that the Minister mentioned that I can’t remember. Can the Minister indicate as to what assistance is available for the private sector to hire summer students? Thank you.

Thank you. Is this a top up to the existing budget or are we allocating a budget to something that has been done without a budget?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask questions to the Minister of Human Resources and it’s in regards to the Minister’s statement he made yesterday about the summer student employment. Mr. Speaker, the Minister stated that in 2006 the GNWT provided employment to 343 summer students, and as of this week 195 students have been hired. I want to ask the Minister whether or not the number of student employment positions available has been reduced this year, because on the streets parents and university students are suggesting that government is not hiring as many summer students. A...