Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’m going to speak about an act that was assented to in the Legislative Assembly in June of 1985 and that’s the Mental Health Act. In the last 28 years, nothing of significance has been done to this Mental Health Act. There haven’t been any major amendments to this act to provide our workers and our stakeholders and those that provide the mental health services in the Northwest Territories to do a better job or else get the services to people that need it. Those 28 years is a long time.

The reason I’m bringing this up today is because on the Department of Health...

Mr. Speaker, I do agree a lot more needs to be done in this area. With the RCMP staff and with the community program planning, community plans, is the RCMP trained on the Mental Health Act and the provisions in the Mental Health Act when dealing with clients that might be under the influence? Are they trained fully and understand the provisions where they can have somebody possibly admitted under the Mental Health Act that might be dangerous to themselves or to others? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You’re hearing that there’s a theme here today, and we’re speaking about mental health and addictions in the Northwest Territories. It’s a sad day that we have to speak about this again. I think this is our second or third time that we’ve come to this government talking about the importance of getting a treatment centre or getting some kind of programs in place for people that are battling addictions and have no place to turn except go down south without the support of their family and their friends.

I’ve spoken up in this House before, where I’ve talked about reports...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just before I begin, I would like to commend the Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya, for his commitment to his constituents and taking a big step standing up for his people and what the people believe in and what they do need. I would like to thank my colleagues from the Government Operations committee as well as staff that travelled with us on this important matter. One other thank you to the people of the Sahtu region for their warm welcomes, their great hospitality and, as Ms. Bisaro mentioned, their great storytelling.

The Sahtu region is a region that, in all my travels...

Continuing with working with the RCMP in terms of going into the schools and into the communities, I know the RCMP has a successful DARE program. Are there any other types of campaigns or teachings or education that the RCMP can do, not only in the school setting – I believe that’s only for Grade 5 students – but outside of just the Grade 5 classroom, is there something that the RCMP can do in the community in terms of education or some promotion and prevention in terms of bootlegging and drug and alcohol use? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions today for the Minister of Justice and looking at how we can work on preventing and controlling substances that go into the communities, but also what can the RCMP staff do when they are in a community to assist the community and some prevention and training programs.

My first question for the Minister of Justice is what has been done so far. I know there have been a lot of good alcohol and drug busts of bootleggers in the Sahtu region, for example, and up in one of the communities of Beaufort-Delta, but what has been happening within the RCMP “G”...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m glad the Minister brought up the Not Us! campaign because that was my final question. I know there is a lot of funding out there for communities to access the Not Us! campaign. Some use it very wisely and very effectively; others use it in other areas that might not be as effective in getting to the problem of dealing with the drug dealers or the bootleggers.

Would the Minister commit to possibly looking at a stronger campaign that focuses on the bootleggers that access our small communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know this is my fourth question here, but one in particular was medical termination. When we do have a GNWT employee that does have medical illnesses and can’t continue with their job, can the Minister give me a timeline when somebody who is on medical, when they’re going through their termination, how long is that process to get a person terminated from the GNWT when they’re going through medical termination? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Minister did hit a few things on the head there in terms of some challenges that we have in getting these ROEs passed to government employees.

Can I ask the Minister what some of these challenges and barriers are? Would it be dealing with HR training, development? Do we need to put more training within our HR staff or is there more capacity that needs to be in that department such as more personnel to cover such processes? Can the Minister identify some of these barriers and whether or not our HR department needs more human resources themselves or more funding sources? Thank you, Mr...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This past weekend the Sport North Federation held a coaching and volunteer symposium with representation from all across the Northwest Territories. The theme was Every Step Counts. Coaches and volunteers are the backbone of our communities, our regions and our territory. They are also strong role models, mentors and even counsellors. I applaud Sport North and their efforts in supporting and building the capacity within our communities and our people, our coaches and our volunteers.

The symposium focused on physical activity and nutrition as well as, in team management...