Daryl Dolynny

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Moving on with general comments, I have Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Moving on with general comments, I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d like to welcome the Department of Health and Social Services here today. We’ve got a fairly daunting task before us here in the next day or two. I’m hoping to try to evaluate the current budget here for the Department of Health and Social Services. I did have a chance to read the Minister’s opening remarks again, and obviously, I had a chance to read one of his statements earlier today on the health and social services system. So I’ll try to amalgamate both here today in kind of a general overview at a high level here.

I think we are in a ripe position to reposition...

The only sound I am hearing on this side of the House is tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.

Clearly the Minister is fine with sharing his numbers with the committee, but somehow 24 hours later he has no idea and has nothing to present to the people of the NWT, which I think is quite shameful.

Given our questionable financial situation in the current budget, where we continue to have a number of funded, dormant, inactive positions and a miscalculation of our taxation revenues, can the Minister indicate if the Financial Management Board is initiating any passive restraint policies in its 2014-2015...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I spoke about the term “passive restraint” and the situation we are faced within our financial debt wall. The Financial Management Board Passive Restraint Policy is used in times of trying to find savings within operational spending and usually around job positions and wage dollars, or at least this is how it has been presented to Members of the House.

The duty of a Regular Member is to protect the public purse, and with nothing ever tabled in this House on this policy, it is imperative that we take a moment today and ask some probing questions for the...

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Moving on with general comments, I have Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I spoke of some alarming statistics involving our daily intake of sugar and some of the national guidelines that will be forthcoming from the National Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.

People, more than ever, are naturally hardwired to sugar and some have even coined sugar as a new tobacco of our generation. In the wake of the NWT’s successful Drop the Pop campaign, now, more than ever, the premise of an awareness campaign dedicated to sugar is highly warranted.

My questions will be for today’s Sugar Daddy, the Minister of Health and Social Services.

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Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Moving on with general questions, I have Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Stewart. I will allow Ms. Bisaro just to have one quick follow-up question. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Hawkins.