Tom Beaulieu

Thank you. It is a national issue, no question about it. As a territorial government and as a territory we do participate with the other provincial and also the federal Department of Health in the healthy weight work throughout the territory. Right now the next Healthy Weights Conference is in Newfoundland. We had requested that the Healthy Weights Conference be brought to Yellowknife. I had recently discussed that possibility with the Minister and there’s an indication that we would get in line like everyone else and that we might be next after Newfoundland, but Newfoundland was decided a...

There are no clear protocols. I indicated that. It would be difficult for me to provide protocols around this when there are no clear protocols. I think that the system, the government recognizes this as a gap in the system, when we’re trying to determine how we’re going to perform rescue on a place like a highway, as an example.

With that in mind, we had put together the Interagency Working Group that is led by the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs working with the Department of Transportation and ourselves, Health and Social Services, so that we could develop a system that would...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The protocol, as I understand it, does not specifically speak to air rescue services by a chopper or by a float plane. I wasn’t advised officially by anyone that a chopper was originally called in and asked not to go to the site. I checked into that to see if there was anything within medical travel, within medevac, to see if there was something in there on how we pay for rescue with choppers. In that category it indicated that anything outside of the communities where there would be a requirement for a float plane or a chopper there was nothing in the policy that spoke...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the coordination of that framework activity does look at physical activity, mental wellness, exercise and healthy eating, all of the various areas. We work with the Department of Education in trying to promote healthy foods in the schools, we have Drop the Pop and so on. So those are some of the activities that I can run through quickly. In general, what we’re asking people, as we discuss, is to eat healthy, exercise, drink responsibly and don’t smoke. Thank you.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Health and Social Services leads a Healthy Choices Framework, since 2003-04 approximately, when those stats came out. It’s a partnership between ourselves, Education, MACA, Department of Justice and Department of Transportation, and it is to coordinate several of the GNWT’s programs and services related to health, safety and active living. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We would like to have a few minutes to see if we have the information here with us.

Mr. Chairman, I think a fairly common thing has been that people sometimes end up with mental health issues as a result of addictions. Sometimes people with mental health end up with addictions. That’s why we see the two items fairly linked. We’re trying to give the forum the ability to, as we appointed them as experts in the community, that they are well known in the community and had good community knowledge, that they felt that removing the mental health from their forum would net better results and better consultation at the community level by using the term addictions and community...

Thank you. I will ask the deputy minister to provide a more detailed response to that question. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That budget is in the contribution to YK Health and Social Services. The overall contribution and the total amount is $175,000.

Thank you. We recognize that part of the issue in some of the authorities is the result of just not having the right budgeting for some. For some it’s the costs of doing business the way that each of the authorities do their business, bringing locums in from across the country. So as we move towards dealing with a governance issue at the health and social services authority and trying to change the way we manage our physician resources across the territory, trying to bring the physician resources to the Northwest Territories, we’re hoping to address these issues.

So I’ll just read some of the...