Tom Beaulieu

I’ve received e-mails from the various MLAs. I would say under 20 e-mails indicating to us that there’s an issue with health care cards not coming on time, but we’ve set allowances for those individuals if they had applied for a health care card and by the time their birthday came around had not received health care, then we would cover them.

I guess, again, we need to make sure that people have coverage, health coverage, and that’s what we’re doing. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department is continuing to work to resolve the few issues that are out there with the people having misplaced in either the application process or the card that was coming from the South to them. We don’t see this as a major issue. We process 100 applications per day and we’re doing those applications. We have a very high rate of compliance in returning health care cards. Most people have no issues with this, so I don’t think it’s a scandalous situation. Thank you.

Not officially and we understand that if an individual did receive bariatric surgery and then he was to come off some expensive diabetic medicines, then the recovery would be fairly rapid. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the Department of Health and Social Services supports organ and tissue donation. The best way for people to ensure their wish to be an organ donor is to let family members and loved ones know and ask for their support, should they be in a position to donate when they are unable to speak for themselves.

The NWT is in partnership with Alberta Health Services. They provide transplant services for our residents. They are currently looking for better ways, better options to identifying potential donors, including the possibility of a registry that will include our residents in any...

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. [Translation] Mr. Speaker, today I’m happy for the people here. Since I have been a kid, I’ve been brought up on the land. The federal government has been our boss, the way we trap, the way we hunt, the way we survive on the land, the animals we kill. If we should shoot a moose or something, we were on the tagging system before. It’s a long way we’ve gone from those days.

We people sitting here, with the agreement that we are signing today, the people who are going to be sitting here after we are here, are going to be the boss of themselves. Right now the federal...

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be joining my colleague, the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, in tabling Right from the Start: A Framework for Early Childhood Development in the NWT later today. This framework not only responds to the priorities of this Legislative Assembly, it also answers concerns that are top of mind for the people of the Northwest Territories.

Research informs us about the importance of the first years of a child’s life, and the wisdom of our elders and our communities has confirmed this. The return on early childhood investments has been well documented.

The...

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I just wanted to congratulate a few people on the Premier’s Awards that were given out this morning in the Great Hall, people that originate from Tu Nedhe: Danny Beaulieu – my brother, actually – and Heather Beck for their work in the anthrax breakout; Felix Lockhart for his work in the residential school impacts; and also Justin Bailey and Everett McQueen for their work with young people.

I also want to take this opportunity to congratulate Jonas and Violet Beaulieu of Fort Resolution who celebrated their 60th anniversary on May 19th in Fort Resolution.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A lot of the work that that particular NGO does now, I think, was done because there was a lack of services in that area in Hay River, so it would be difficult to say how they would be able to obtain those types of services if it wasn’t for that particular NGO group.

Certainly, we fund the NWT Foster Parents Coalition. We fund the various foster parents coalitions across the territory, as one example.

Yes, I think that application-based may be a good method of flowing money out and creating small contribution agreements within organizations. I think within the frameworks that we have and within the organizations that we already deal with, the majority of this money can flow, including to some of our own organizations like Healthy Families. Thank you.

The Department of Health and Social Services and the health and social service authorities jointly fund about 50 NGOs to the tune of about $14 million. In that, about 30 to 35 of those could be working in the healing and prevention field, like, where it funds some youth organizations, some healing organizations and community governments. So within that we are capable of moving some of this prevention money directly into those organizations, whether they be NGOs that specifically do healing, or youth, or community governments that could do that as part of their functions. Thank you.