Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Madam Chair. Confidentiality is a huge issue. I can't say where they go. The Minister might have an idea, but I know that, when I did the housing survey and I went right across the Northwest Territories and asked people, I was worried about people being penalized and being evicted from their homes. I actually picked out a person within the department who I felt I could trust, and that poor person, I made all those surveys go through that person. The Minister does have that authority to decide that, if she so wishes. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to start by raising the point that points of privilege should be raised at the earliest possible time. This issue has been raised now for a number of weeks. This point could have been raised earlier. If there was an issue related to the timing of the legal opinion, I note it was dated February 12th, more than two weeks ago. Mr. Speaker, nothing in the present circumstances have prevented the Assembly from being able to fulfill its duties. The hiring and firing of associate deputy ministers and their statutory appointments of officials are not matters that relate...

Absolutely. I couldn't say it better than the Member said it herself. The managed alcohol program isn't only about getting people off of addictions. It is about harm reduction. The amount of people I have seen in my career that have done horrible things that I won't speak about in this House to actually be able to get a $5 bottle of beer are horrible stories that I have heard. These people will actually benefit from this program. They may, but they don't have to resort to those methods to feed their addiction. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, we will take into consideration as we develop the programs, as we develop all programs, where they are best situated. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is a long-term goal. I think it would be very inappropriate for anyone to just discontinue what we have. The priority is to increase the number of resident healthcare professionals by at least 20 percent, yet the priority does not say about decrease the number and then increase. If we are providing services to our residents in the North as public servants, which we should be, and we already know we have a shortage, it would just be illogical for us to stop using locums until we have that filled. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The nine comes from just trying to be reasonable about what we feel that we can accomplish in the life of this Assembly. When we first put out distance learning, which wasn't during my term but I did take part in it, they were wise in that they said they would do five a year. That way, they were able to keep that commitment. This year, you will see that there will be 20. If we would have said 99, we wouldn't have made it. Start with nine. Each year, we'll try to improve. If we break this, this is not our bible. This does not mean that we only do nine, and in two years...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will take that as a comment, and I am looking forward, also, to having measurable outcomes for a lot of areas in the government. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That is part of the recruitment strategy, absolutely. We need to have a strategy, but we need to start getting down into places like universities and colleges that we can actually attain things. When I did my degree in social work, one of the best things I had seen every year was having people come and say, "We have jobs for you. Come and get a job." Both of my sons are in post-secondary now, and the same thing, they are saying this is one of the best things about us.

There are places out there. We need to figure out what we are doing, and we need to get out there, and...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The difficulty when you are dealing with alcohol and drug use is: the GNWT alone can't solve this issue. We need a community as a whole to be able to address this. We do support things like in Yellowknife, in our capital, the wellness camp behind the arena there, those are good things, but we also, in the smaller communities, we need to engage. Our whole Cabinet is on that. We need to engage with Indigenous governments, and they have their own traditional methods of healing people. It is very disrespectful for us not to take that into consideration. We haven't defined...

Thank you, Madam Chair. At this point, we cannot put targets such as "improve food production by 25 percent" because we haven't done a base analysis of what actually we are producing. You cannot increase things when you do not know where you stand at the moment. Thank you, Madam Chair.