Thank you, Madam Speaker. I give notice that on Wednesday, February 19, 2014, I will move the following motion: I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that the Speaker be authorized to set such sitting days and hours as the Speaker, after consultation, deems fit to assist with the business before the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. That training program, ASIST, I have heard nothing but good things about it.

Would the Minister, in terms of that training, look at possibly putting that program in the areas where we don’t have a nurse or we don’t have an RCMP officer as a priority of the first places that we get that training to? Would he do that, and also, if he can also maybe share with the House how many communities actually do have that ASIST training in place right now?

The reason I bring this up is we do have a Mental Health Act that does allow for physicians and practitioners to hold an individual for up to 24 hours, that’s the first step, and in a lot of cases, should there be alcohol involved, sometimes the individuals are let out of the care and treatment of the health centre or the hospital, and that’s why these kind of statistics would be good to help develop a better plan of action in terms of what steps can the authorities or the hospitals do or the health centres do to keep these people in care until they are ready to get a full assessment.

I’d like...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Last week I had a very interesting conversation with a staff member who does work with one of the organizations that does good work on behalf of government, and we started talking about mental health and other issues that are associated with mental health, but the conversation got into suicides and the high rate of suicides in the NWT. According to our 2011 Health Status Report, the Northwest Territories is 65 percent higher than the rest of Canada, which is alarming and should actually be an issue and a focus for this government moving forward.

As we talked, we talked...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It has been awhile since I’ve stood up in this House to address the continued concern that plagues most of our communities, and this concern is of those who continue to feed off our vulnerable residents and those who are battling with addictions: the drug dealers and the bootleggers.

I’m speaking here today because of concerns that I’ve heard from residents throughout the Northwest Territories recently, and talking about the issues that still arise with the intimidation from families, from friends. We need to empower our residents of the Northwest Territories to speak...

The Minister referred to Crime Stoppers and it is an anonymous way to get the information to those that need it to see about some type of case or some type of file.

Does the Minister have statistics on the amount of times that Crime Stoppers has been used over this past fiscal year, the year previous? Does his department collect stats on Crime Stoppers so that we know, as a public, that it’s actually being used and it’s actually being utilized by people of the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to follow up with questions to the Minister of Justice today in regard to my Member’s statement.

Concerns were brought to my office, phone calls, e-mails, in regard to some of the issues that we continue to face in our small communities. All you have to look at are some of these coroner’s reports of the alcohol and drug-related fatalities that we continue to see over the years every time a report is tabled in this House. If you look at where some of these alcohol and drug-related fatalities have taken place, and they’ve taken place in communities where there are...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. During our most recent community committee trip to the communities, we heard a lot of startling statistics and facts. Obviously, there has to be some kind of marketing strategy out there to empower our residents to speak up, and I look forward to seeing some of those details.

One of the other ways that we do it is a program called the Not Us! campaign. A lot of communities across the Northwest Territories use it. I just want to ask where the department is in terms of this campaign. How many years has it been running, how successful is it and specifically how many...

If stiffer penalties were introduced four years ago, we’re still continuing to see these issues in the communities. Obviously we need to address the situation but, as I said in my Member’s statement, government can’t do it alone. We need the support of our residents to speak up and speak out on this. In that case, some of our residents are afraid to say anything or be a witness or go to court to provide some of this information.

What is the government doing to provide that support to our residents who want to speak up and how are we going to keep them safe? Does he have a plan to assist those...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had the great honour of attending a function last evening, organized by the NWT Recreation and Parks Association. The event’s focus was to recognize the important work for community groups and individuals that offer support and training for our older population across the Northwest Territories.

Just as importantly, it recognized an active elder in one of our communities who serves to be a role model for his or her community residents. Although there was only one award recipient, there were many nominations for active elders throughout the Northwest Territories and I...