Alfred Moses

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, I don’t think we need a Mental Health Act or see a report to know what is happening in the communities and the neglect that we are having on people who really need the services for these mental health issues. Once again, I would like to ask: Is the Department of Health and Social Services, not only them but there are other departments that are involved in this, how we can work together to address the issue right now?

It is Christmastime. It is a tough time for anybody that is not getting the services they need. I think it is something that needs to be...

Thank you for that information, Minister of Housing. My final question is: We do have some tenants that have really high arrears. Is there an action plan to assist those that feel they don’t have a chance to get out of those arrears? Is there a program or some kind of policy in place that will help those that are beyond what they can pay? Thank you.

That sounds like a good plan in the broad scope of things. However, we do know that some tenants will not go and speak to their LHOs. Is there a plan in place for the LHOs? I know they do a lot of work and we don’t want to overburden them, but is there a plan in place to go and speak to the tenants in their home, especially the ones that might be mobile enough or also with some language barriers? Is there a plan in place to do an outreach program to go and speak with the tenants? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to talk about a great program that’s been initiated by a few departments through the Healthy Choices Framework a couple of years ago that did result from some tragic incidents throughout the Northwest Territories and that we still see today, and that is dealing with drugs in our communities.

The Not Us! Campaign is a very successful campaign initiated through the Department of Justice. It has partners of the RCMP, Health and Social Services, Education, Culture and Employment, MACA and the Executive. It is a program that fights the drugs in our communities...

Mr. Speaker, we cannot continue to band-aid the issue. We need to identify the underlying issues and fix them now in this government. Our greatest resource in the NWT is our people. It is time that we take the appropriate actions and invest in the future of the North by investing in our people in our communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to address an issue that is prominent within the Northwest Territories: mental health and addictions.

At the beginning of this Assembly, Members received a transition presentation from the Department of Health and Social Services. It was presented that their number one key strategic health status driver was, indeed, mental health and addictions. During my campaign I was asked what I thought was the number one concern in the Northwest Territories and in Inuvik, and after considerable thinking about what it would be, the conclusion was mental health and...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of comments here. Being back home in Inuvik on my last time out, I had a few constituents approach me about the lack of jobs in the community and how some of them had to take their pride into consideration and go on income support. Creating these jobs and putting people back to work will affect some of our social concerns that we have in the Northwest Territories and also help with a good discussion we had earlier today on the Anti-Poverty Strategy.

I’m really happy to see that there has been $1 million earmarked to complete the planning for the Inuvik-Tuk...

With students coming out of their communities attending regional centres, specifically in the Beaufort-Delta, their culture and tradition are sometimes lost. They don’t get a chance to practise it. I’d like to see or find out what the timeline is that the department will be looking into getting this e-learning set back up into the community. It did seem between 2000 and 2005 that they did reach a lot of the students. I’d just like to see what the timeline is to have that brought back into the Beaufort-Delta.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. April of 2012 we can expect people of the communities of the Northwest Territories, the ones that have been waiting for the last few years, to start moving through the process and getting their surgeries taken care of by this 17th Legislative Assembly and the government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

With the new standard put in place, that’s probably been about the amount of time since the backlog started. It has taken awhile and I was just wondering what the plan in place was to address the backlog and what exactly is the plan that the Department of Health has come up with to address the backlog of these elective surgeries.