Tom Beaulieu

It’s very unfortunate that money can’t go directly to the communities. I think that the communities would have a better idea. I know that in speaking to the elders in the community -- I know I’m out of time, Mr. Chairman, I’ll be short -- the elders in the community indicate to me that their idea of trying to work with the emotional and social aspects around suicide prevention would be to be bringing people. I had asked the Minister on this on another matter, to bring people in that will work with the communities, like healers and so on that will work with the communities. I think that’s...

That’s good, actually. That sounds good, the money from the federal government. What is the plan to roll out the budget? Is it just filling budgets that are already at the community level or is this a little bit of new money? If so, what’s the communication strategy of the department to the small communities for this particular line item?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We talked a little bit about community health programs yesterday. I didn’t have an opportunity to get into one of the subject matters that I consider to be very important in Tu Nedhe. That is the whole area of the issue with suicide in the small communities. I’d like to ask the Minister if there is anything significantly different in the sense of an increase of attention or programs or anything on suicide prevention in this budget compared to what was in the previous budget.

Mr. Speaker, my last question is the area of time frames. There is a possibility inside the devolution agreement that these sites could be just left as is for extended periods of time. Also, in the economic measures in the AIP, they indicate that economic measures could be accrued to Aboriginal governments. This is an opportunity for Aboriginal governments to clean up with the GNWT at the federal government cost to clean up those sites. Why isn’t the government insisting that the federal government take responsibility in a kindly fashion for cleaning up industrial sites established under their...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about future cost of the devolution agreement for the GNWT. I have questions for the Premier. Why did this government agree to an AIP that does not place full responsibility on the federal government for inflation and the cost of running the regulatory system? Thank you.

In Tu Nedhe alone, there are 25 waste sites. That’s not counting Pine Point and, of course, all the diamond mines are currently in Tu Nedhe and, therefore, these will require future remediation for sure.

There’s also the issue of cleaning up the more recent industrial sites regulated under the legislation implemented since 1984. The public cleanup required on these, the GNWT will have to pay for 100 percent.

I’ll be asking the Premier questions on this at the appropriate time.

The last, there are a few smaller items in here, too, but with the time allotted, the last key item again has long-term benefits in cost and is trying to provide for care for elders in the home. Right now the overall government policy doesn’t make it really easy for individuals to care for their elders. If we have an elder -- and we have that situation occurring a few times in both communities that I represent, in Lutselk’e and Fort Resolution -- where younger family members are either living with their elderly parents or their elderly grandparents. Without those members supporting the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is an area that is of great interest to me in the health field; the whole area of treatment and counselling and so on and so forth. Speaking to local health workers, the cost of other health, the cost of people being sick and hospitalized and whatnot, a lot of that is attributed to, I guess, not necessarily all addictions but attributed to alcohol. The health workers seem to think that alcohol is a big, huge contributing factor in small communities for the health of the folks. The communities also seem to have a solution. I’d like to see the department working...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question for the Minister on medical travel. I just wanted to give a little bit of a background on some of the stuff that you’re dealing with at the community level. I’m trying to see if the Minister would look at putting some sort of flexibility into the Medical Travel Policy or the medical travel benefit, I guess it is.

What’s happening is people are facing some hardships. We have experienced in the past and we continue to experience situations where people are sick or injured and have to remain in hospital, whether it be in Yellowknife or Edmonton. Medical...

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell me what the plan is to strike more child and family services committees at the community level? Thank you.