Thank you, Mr. Speaker. WHEREAS one of the goals of the 17th Assembly is “healthy, educated people free from poverty;”

AND WHEREAS one of the priorities of the 17th Assembly is “supporting child care programs to help parents become or stay employed;”

AND WHEREAS the “$7 per day” daycare program in Quebec has been shown to decrease poverty by cutting in half the number of single parents on welfare and increasing their after-tax income by 81 percent in the first decade;

AND WHEREAS the child poverty rate in Quebec is now half of what it was before the “$7 per day” daycare program was started;

AND...

Thanks for that commitment. Thanks to the Minister. Unfortunately, and I agree with most of what he said, but towards the end, we have not done the research. That is what I’m saying. Let’s do the research. Let’s commit ourselves fully. Do the research. What are the programs? What are the success rates of the different models? What is our situation? How would it work, jibe with on-the-land programs and so on? Let’s put the effort and the commitment to resolve this once and for all. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the new Minister of Health and Social Services, with my congratulations, and it follows up on my Member’s statement on the need for a treatment centre or not within the Northwest Territories.

Does the Minister agree that the need for a drug and alcohol treatment centre in the NWT, which means the allocation of substantial funding and efforts, versus focusing on other programs and accessing southern institutions, remains unclear and needs attention and focus to be resolved? Mahsi.

Thank you. On our trip to North Dakota, we saw that fracking requires a huge number of trucks; so many trucks that they were wearing 10-inch-deep ruts in the asphalt and causing the state to go to concrete road construction at substantial cost. Now this government is promoting fracking for the Sahtu.

How does the Minister plan to ensure the public roads we have already built are not destroyed and the public is not paying for roads and repairs that should be paid for by the extraction industry? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Transportation. I recognize that the Minister is quite new to this position, and I’d like to start by offering my congratulations, and I hope he’s ready to get on with things in his new role. My questions are on the issue of public highways and what happens when resource exploitation puts extra pressure on them. My constituents on the Ingraham Trail are concerned that the secondary winter road to the diamond mines may not be built this year. They are concerned that this will cause an increase in truck traffic on the Ingraham...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last night I attended, as did the Member for Frame Lake, an event sponsored by the local chapter of the Council of Canadians, a national non-profit group supported not by governments or corporations, but by individual citizens in Canada. The event featured a talk by Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the council.

Maude Barlow is an amazing person, the recipient of 11 honourary doctorates and untold awards and recognitions. She recently served as the United Nations first senior advisor on water issues. During this term, in July 2010, through Resolution 64/292, the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank all involved for bringing this legislation forward. This really addresses a very serious issue that at its most serious, of course, can lead to severe consequences, most extreme would be suicide. It’s a national concern, but it is a concern, as well, in every community.

What is the role of schools and our educational system dealing with bullying is the question, given that they have considerable responsibilities already for educating our youth. I know there has been considerable discussion on that and I appreciate that.

Schools and the education system...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to bring this motion forward with my colleague Mr. Yakeleya.

We’ve all heard now about the recent assessment of the Quebec model of daycare, the benefits it has enabled and the positive return on the investments financially, socially and economically. We also know this system is not really universal and is not perfect, yet it’s been a hugely positive factor in the social and economic progress of this jurisdiction.

The Scandinavian examples, when you examine them, speak clearly of the success these longer and comprehensive programs have enjoyed...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the Minister has captured it here. There is a lot of confusion, which is what I said. There is a lot of opposing information. That’s exactly what I’m looking for, is a timeline. Right now, as I said, this is buried in the fine print of the so-called action plan. I’m looking for a commitment to get this done within all the details that the Minister has mentioned, various programs that are out there, the conflicting information. We need leadership to penetrate this haze and come up with a clear, informed decision. That is what I’m asking for. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Minister. That is exactly my point. We have not resolved this question for decades. We halfway supported our institutions. We have allowed them to fail because we haven’t had the commitment to either make them work or focus somewhere else. Currently, it’s totally buried in the fine print of the strategy.

Will he bring the focus needed to resolve this question? Bring it to the House and let us know the timeline and how he is going to go about this. I would like to hear him commit to that during this session. The day has come. Mahsi.