Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it’s my honour to recognize the parents, or at least the mother, of my esteemed colleague Mr. Abernethy, the wonderful Loretta Abernethy, a constituent of Weledeh. Welcome.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted.

Indeed, I have heard these comments many times before from this Minister. We are trying to penetrate those comments and get him to consider new comments. The infrastructure deficit is something we have heard many, many times from this Cabinet. We seem willing to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into highways, building highways and maintaining them. Does the Minister not see the need to balance that with some much more modest contributions to some of the other needs that our citizens are pointing out are a priority, including Yellowknife, as the Whitehorse citizens did? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to refer to an e-mail tabled yesterday from Mr. Lovatt, who bravely provides a painful description of how he and his mother suffered a loss of his younger brother and struggled to call emergency services without knowing the proper numbers. My question is for the Minister of MACA. What does this Minister have to say in response to this young man’s call for the GNWT to play an important role in establishing 911 service here? Thank you.

I appreciate that openness on the part of the Minister. I did find out about this from a concerned resident and I’d be happy to forward that information to his system with that.

Can the Minister outline for me how the department does keep parents directly informed of good child care and rearing practices in general? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I am reviewing the priorities I see for this Assembly’s mandates. While time is always short, our end of term, now only 22 months away, looms ever closer.

First, it is clear that we need to take a stand on climate change by setting science-based targets for greenhouse gas reductions and a comprehensive plan to get there. Our energy priorities, biomass and water strategies, the gaps that remain unknown, all will be replaced and revealed in context through a well-integrated plan.

This is challenging and it will change how we do business, but the benefits are many. We...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I tried to find out what other provinces in Canada, what practices are followed there. I looked at all 10 provinces. I am able to confirm that one, two, three, four, five of them, the 911 service is provided by the provincial governments. Three I was not able to determine and two they leave to municipalities. So obviously the majority of jurisdictions are provincial 911 services. So again, Mr. Speaker, I am wondering why this Minister won’t consider what most of the country is doing and certainly our neighbours to the west. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Indeed, I have heard those comments from the Minister. Of course, we have our neighbouring capital city of Whitehorse, which the territorial government set up 911 service just for the city of Whitehorse. I had a meeting with NorthwesTel here this week. I found out the cost of establishing a service in Yellowknife and indeed in all communities, but starting with Yellowknife and our larger communities, 70-some percent of our population is indeed affordable, with participation of this government and municipal governments, and then could be maintained thereafter by municipal governments. So does...

That’s sufficient for now. I’ll look forward to further work on this. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up on my statement from yesterday and my priority mentioned today of early childhood education to the Minister of ECE.

Pediatricians in B.C. are ready to adopt the recommendation that children under the age of two not watch any television at all. This is already recommended by the pediatricians in the United States. Apparently problems that are linked to television viewing by the very young include obesity and an increase in violent activity, but, most importantly, two hours of screen time daily will cut brain development by an estimated 15 percent.

No...