Bob Bromley

I hate to waste questions like this, Mr. Speaker. Sorry. I hate to waste questions like this. I asked what the Minister is proposing, not what she’d like to see. I wonder if I could get that answered. And while we’re at it, has there been evaluation of the existing Healthy Families programs? Mahsi.

The current delivery of the Healthy Families Program in four communities has been endorsed by all and provides the basis for rolling this program out across the Territory. We know dollars are short, but the demonstrated, almost miraculous, benefits of nurse-family programs shows this is where we should be staking our resources. Our existing small community nursing station delivery model and our social services Healthy Families programs provides the basis on which to build.

I will be pushing for maximum emphasis on this approach and will be asking the Minister questions on how to pursue this to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to welcome my constituents Dick and Loretta Abernethy. I’d also like to recognize representatives from the labour unions, certainly Mary Lou Cherwaty.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’ve heard the Minister of Finance’s priorities stated in his budget address today. Today I will take my two minutes and add some of my priorities, review some of my priorities that I will pursue in the upcoming budget debate.

At the top of the list is implementation of the recommendations of the Child and Family Services Act review. We heard more evidence of this urgent need on this morning’s news with the extremely sad report of a teen suicide and the coroner specifically urging action on the committee’s recommendations.

Action on housing. We urgently need a...

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Next I have Ms. Bisaro.

As I mentioned earlier, we’re skirting dangerously close to our somewhat extraordinary debt limit that we’ve been provided with. Albeit I suppose we could have skirted a little bit closer, even. I appreciate the effort that’s been made to build a small cushion, although $60 million out of $1.34 billion is a pretty modest cushion. I’m wondering what vulnerabilities the Minister sees in the upcoming year that would push us up against, or perhaps even beyond, that debt limit, and any perspective he might provide on making sure that doesn’t happen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Finance as well. I’d like to start by asking where the funding, I didn’t see any funding identified for the implementation of a new Greenhouse Gas Reduction Strategy which the Minister is committed to complete by this spring and I think is well on the road towards doing that. I’m wondering why we haven’t identified that in our initiatives. That’s obviously going to require some new dollars to achieve, hopefully, some more progressive targets.

Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the comments of my colleagues here. There’s certainly a ring of commonality out there. I’m sure the Ministers are listening. I think there are some real opportunities out there and I’m not convinced at all that we’re capturing those opportunities.

I want to start off by thanking the Minister for his budget address. I’m looking forward to getting into the detail, as I’ve talked about this a couple times today.

I note that three years ago we set a goal of living within our means and I will be commenting on that subsequently here.

With regard to the economy, I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Minister for those remarks. Our strategic plan for the 16th Assembly, a couple of the pillars supposedly identified there were a preventative approach and a comprehensive, government-wide, cross-departmental approach to try and get rid of the stovepipes that are out there, so called. How does the Minister see this budget bringing an enhanced focus on a preventative and cross-departmental or government-wide approach on some of the big issues in a way that we haven’t seen to date despite our plan?