Bill Braden

I guess the aspect that I was looking at, Mr. Chairman, and the Premier referred to it, was really the across-government. Not so much I don’t want to isolate the Executive or any department, but it’s that across-government expectation of communication. One aspect of this is, as the Premier pointed out, where each department has one or two communicators and many of our boards and agencies also have those kind of functions within them, we’ve seen a couple of interesting moves fairly recently, Mr. Chairman, with technology where we’ve kind of brought together our IT people into a service centre...

That is it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As Mr. Menicoche highlighted when he read the report, the area that rose up from our briefing with the Minister on this was the growth in separate fields, Mr. Chairman. The mandate and the role of IGRASP, as relates to the mandate and the role of Aboriginal Affairs; the crossover and overlap that these two agencies were starting to see.

Also, Mr. Chairman, as the report details to some extent, the creation or jockeying of senior deputy positions to try to accommodate this. The recommendation that committee has made here, Mr. Chairman, is that we would like the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My comments will be brief and very supportive of this bill. I have had at least one fairly extensive encounter with a constituent who had a number of difficulties in some staffing appeals and it was quite apparent that the difficulties were within the regulations and the steps that either the appeal process is required to follow or not required to follow and sometimes the interpretation of those really caused some issues. So this is very welcome, certainly from the people who work for us and I would also like to think among the people who are responsible and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Thursday, March 10, 2005, I will move the following motion: Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Nunakput, that the Legislative Assembly request that the Auditor General of Canada undertake a comprehensive performance audit of the workers’ compensation function of the Northwest Territories/Nunavut Workers’ Compensation Board and report thereon to the Legislative Assembly; and further, that the performance audit examine the organization, training and orientation of personnel, practices, attitudes, philosophy, internal...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In a somewhat related vein, I have noticed sitting here and working for the past month in this session, Mr. Speaker, the number of visitors, especially Japanese visitors, that were seen here in the Legislative Assembly has grown considerably over what I have seen here in past winter months.

From being here on a steady basis throughout the year, I know that the Legislative Assembly and our grounds are very much a part of the tourism product of Yellowknife as the capital, and justly so; it is a magnificent building and we are all very proud of it. One of the things I am...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In a meeting that I had with some mental health professionals a few weeks ago, it became apparent that there are some aspects at least of this that could very well serve not only those people suffering from mental illness, but the professionals who have to grapple with trying to make the right decisions using our legislation as their platform. Would the Minister consider at least a preliminary investigation into what might be done to address some of these more pressing human rights aspects of our law? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A couple of areas, and I appreciate the Speaker's presentation here. This is his first presentation before committee.

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Welcome to the witness chair, Mr. Delorey, Mr. Speaker. In his comments he mentioned one of the innovations we are undertaking here is the creation of the Cultural Enhancement Advisory Committee to this Assembly. Mr. Speaker, this committee had its origins in the last Assembly, in the 14th, when one of Mr. Delorey’s predecessors commissioned the report on what could be done in and around the building to more dramatically reflect the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions this afternoon are for the Minister of Health and Social Services in the area of our Mental Health Act and its modernization and the services that we provide. Mr. Speaker, it’s my understanding, if I have the statistics right here, that about 50 percent of all visits to doctors are because of mental health related illnesses or problems that people are having. My question is does the NWT have enough capacity and trained workers and professionals to deal with the caseload of mental illness now before us? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Chair, a little bit of administration here. This recommendation, as you would have noted, applies to the Department of Education, Culture and Employment and is not on the books here for the Department of Executive, but we wanted to get it on record, so that is why it was brought in at this point. Thank you. That is all, Mr. Chair.