Robert Hawkins

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. The reasons I was just citing more specifically are grants and contributions fall under 197, but the detail of it is actually on the next page. So I can save the rest of my questions for the next page. What would you like me to do, Mr. Chairman?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have no doubt that every one of the 19 Members in this Assembly ran in here with a can-do attitude about trying to do things. I would ask the Minister, is there any reason he here today can stand by and say I will not try this? Would he be willing to at least take this idea to a legal advisor who writes legislation to take a look at this particular scenario?

I’m going to disagree and I’ll allow the Minister to correct it for the record, but I’m not sure how he doesn’t see it a year away, because if it doesn’t come for a draft tabled before the House, it doesn’t come before the House before the fall of this year, that means the next Assembly won’t have a chance to review it, update it, take it out to public consultation, and they’d be lucky to see it back before February.

The reason I ask for a small amendment that would allow to vary it is that they could work with the committee, and certainly driven by the family, we could find a way to deal with...

Depending if you’re a girl, woman, man or boy, girls will attempt suicide at higher rates; men and boys will die of suicide more often. First Nations youth die by suicide five or six times more often than their non-Aboriginal counterparts.

To bring this to a close, Canada only spends about seven cents out of every public health care dollar on mental health care, far below the 10 to 11 percent countries like New Zealand the UK spend.

In closing, mental illness is certainly the elephant in the room that we can all see that no one seems to want to talk about or confront. I’ll finish my statement...

At this particular time I don’t have anything further in this area. Thank you.

I don’t think the $10 million prize is actually the problem. I think that’s something we could engage the federal government in, because as we all know, AANDC pays that $1.9 million for care and maintenance, again, for in perpetuity, so it’s not just my lifetime, it’s everybody’s lifetime, forever.

Would the Minister be willing to take this project on with an eye of what’s best for the Northwest Territories and propose it to the federal government through AANDC and ask them that if we could maybe run the logistical administrative side of reaching out to the world on this particular problem...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Is the Minister familiar enough with the legislation to find out if it’s all in regulations? In other words, can we make changes easily through the regulations, or is it through legislative initiative we’d have to tackle some of these particular problems? For the everyday folk there’s a real big difference in timing and efforts to change these types of rules and, as such, I look to the Minister to ask, what’s the easiest way to make these changes if appropriate and certainly where appropriate? Thank you.

In the interim… Well, first I should say thank you to the Minister for recognizing that the program needs to be reviewed and updated, where appropriate, of course. In the interim, many good retailers are providing paper bags which are compostable and certainly biodegradable bags which are still meeting our objective, which is getting plastic bags out of the environment.

Is there anything that the Minister can do today or commit to in the near future that we can stop having these retailers have to charge the same 25 cents as if it’s a regular plastic bag that does not break down in the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Single Use Retail Bag Program has recently had its fifth birthday. It was originally rolled out into stores in 2010 and had its last update in February 2011.

Many of us have come to know and appreciate the fact that the single use bag is being charged at 25 cents per use. That’s on paper, plastic, biodegradable and, certainly, compostable bags.

I’m on record many times supporting responsible environmental initiatives and I certainly support the principle of this retail bag initiative, but we must always be practical in our design. There are notable exemptions. As we...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to touch on a few subjects, a little bit of repeat from my other colleagues, but I do think it’s important to further lend strength and emphasize in certain areas. I’ll certainly bounce around here on a few subjects.

One of the issues I’ve raised repeatedly over the years is a seniors charter. I have yet to see any development of it. I had the former Minister express an interest in it, and I certainly hope the department eventually finds time in something like this. We always seem to talk the talk about how important our seniors are, and many of our health...