Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and recognize the hard work and efforts of the NWT Recreation and Parks Association. From January 7th to March 4th, residents of the Northwest Territories participated in the event, The Walk to Talk Challenge. With records this year, we had 102 teams participate, and out of the 102 teams that participated, 73 had actually made it to Tuk, and I understand there were other teams that did make it but didn’t have their times submitted on time as well.

The grand total of kilometres that were logged was 207,808 kilometres.

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It has been about 30 months since we’ve been in this government here, and recommendations from the 16th Legislative Assembly specifically on the report that was tabled in the House yesterday with the child and family services, which I believe the current and the previous Ministers of Health and Social Services where very strong advocates on, and yet we see this report in front of us today.

As stated from some of my colleagues, there are many areas that we can focus on with this report, but I would like to talk a little about the accountability. In the report it states...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Junior kindergarten in the small communities is very important. Looking at all the discussions back and forth and starting with the small communities, I know we’ve had discussions and presentation dialogues in briefings before and we talk about the children that are being developmentally delayed that are entering the school system right now and any type of program that this government can offer, whether it is junior kindergarten or even early childhood development programs. But going with the Junior Kindergarten Program, the plan for the next three years, starting with...

Just recently in Inuvik, we opened up an emergency shelter that allowed more time for the RCMP officers to do other types of work rather than deal with public intoxication and things like that. Shortly after the emergency shelter kicked into effect, there was a big drug bust in the community, which meant that the RCMP had more time to actually conduct their business and go out and do more important work. With that said, we’re putting a lot of resources into all these crimes that are associated with illicit drug use. If we put more money into prevention, we can prevent the drugs from coming up...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. During my Member’s statement I talked about some of the illicit drug use in the Northwest Territories and how we have organizations outside of the NWT and within the NWT that are combating the drug dealers and drug use and high risk behaviours in the Northwest Territories.

I’d like to ask the Minister of Justice, with such incidents happening in the Northwest Territories and we’re seeing an increase of illicit drugs coming into the North by road, by plane, by boat, however it comes in, what is the Minister’s department doing to crack down on the influx of these types of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to make reference to this TV program that I watch, it’s called Border Patrol, and they have an RCMP canine unit that goes around sniffing bags and things like that. We know when we’re getting people coming up to the North. When the ice roads go in, there’s a lot of traffic when that happens. The same with Inuvik when we have a big activity coming up, we have transportation vehicles coming to the Northwest Territories.

Would the Minister look at committing and dedicating those canine units at the busiest times of the year to do spot checks within our Northwest...

I could get into more details in terms of drug use. This might come up as a written question at some point or the Minister could possibly give me a commitment to get some stats on how many of our crime-related offences are related specifically to illicit drugs that we don’t normally see in the Northwest Territories.

Would he be willing to get me that information or let me know what kind of percentage we are looking at for type of crimes committed in the Northwest Territories that are specifically associated and relate to illicit drug use? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today’s youth face difficult choices, enormous peer pressure and more readily available and potential mind-altering drugs than any other time in history.

I’m very proud to say that in my previous careers that I’ve had, I had the opportunity to work with a group called the Odd Squad. The Odd Squad is a group out of Vancouver who does a lot of trips throughout the Northwest Territories and to other Aboriginal communities across Canada to educate the public about devastating effects of high risk behaviour and the impact it has on members of our communities.

This is a group...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In 1991 Canada ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The convention recognizes children as citizens with the right to reach their fullest potential to be treated with dignity and respect, to be protected from harm, to exercise a voice, to engage in play and recreational activities, and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.

Furthermore, our government here just tabled a document Measuring Success and Focusing on Results. In this report it states a few statistics that I’d like to share with the Members here today as well as...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On the flip side of that, when we have foster families that are caring for the individual or the child, at what age does the child not become the responsibility of foster families and are set to become independent and go out into society? Is there care or treatment or an area where the GNWT still supports these young adults, because right now what we do see is a lot of young adults who continue to stay home with their families because there is no support, especially in some of the small communities where there might be some housing shortages or some jobs that might not...