Tom Beaulieu

[English translation not provided.]

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to pass my condolences on to the family of Alphonse King, who died way too soon. I’m sure that he will be sadly missed by his entire family in Fort Resolution.

I don’t think the counsellors are going into the day shelter to counsel the people that are there, but there are services available in the community. What I’m saying is that we can advise the people that are there, that are staying there during the day, the individuals or the organization that’s running the shelter, we can provide them information on what counselling services are available, and they can provide that information to the people that are resident there during the day.

Mr. Speaker, I’m sure that isn’t a problem. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Like I said, the Minister’s Forum on Addictions makes up a part of the Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan, which we’ll be tabling in the House tomorrow. We have had consultation with Standing Committee on Social Programs on that action plan. This $300,000 is what we think we need in order to carry out that portion of the action plan. I think that we’re here requesting that money. It’s not been spent. It’s not something where we’ve advised individuals that they would sit on the forum. If the Legislative Assembly decides not to approve this portion of the budget...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Health and Social Services is developing an umbrella health and social services professionals act that will regulate a number of professions under one statute. Thank you.

The plan is to go to 50 percent of communities, 16 or 17 communities. We haven’t picked the communities yet. I think once we have our forum, that we’ve gone to the Members to ask them to provide us names of people who would work well in this forum, and then I think we’re going to go sit down with the forum and make a decision on which communities we would have to attend to have the greatest impact.

Thank you. Aside from what is already in the budget for community counselling, we are trying to now work with our department and within our department to develop wellness plans with all of the communities. Also, tomorrow there will be a Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan released. We’re going to use that plan over the next three years to try to address the backlog that was created by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s work, and then also having the federal government really not having enough resources at the communities to address all of the issues that came about from people...

Thank you, Madam Chair. A lot of the initial work is going to be based in Fort Good Hope and Fort Resolution, with the request from those communities that they had high cancer rates, so we’ve determined that at least Fort Resolution does have higher cancer rates than normal and that Fort Good Hope was marginally higher than the other communities within the Sahtu. There is going to be some work done in there, but the understanding and the plan is to expand to all of the communities so that this work is occurring in all communities where we’re looking at cancer prevention through lifestyle...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m referring to the one treatment centre we have in the Northwest Territories, Nats’ejee K’eh, and then, when required, people are sent to treatment centres in the South also.

The majority is definitely travel. We think that this is an item that is worthy of doing. We have, as part of the Minister’s forum, the department’s Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan. It’s an element within that plan. What we’re trying to do is get in to have at least all of the members of this forum to go into at least half of the communities across the territory to make sure that we are trying to spend some money on prevention, so that we spend the money in the right places so that in the future we’re deferring or we will avoid health costs. We’re saying this is an upfront investment...