Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member's statement, as I mentioned, it's been a long time coming that our country foods are served in the hospitals, long-term care facilities. You hear it all the time. People are tired of hospital food, that same old stuff all the time. Especially when you are recovering from illness or any operations or anything, you want comfort food, caribou meat, moose meat, geese, these sort of wild game. Right now, luckily, we have a handful of ladies in Inuvik who actually take time out of their day to volunteer to cook caribou meat and caribou soup and...

The Minister is a lawyer himself, but I am sure that the Minister also knows that we don't have lawyers on hand in the Mackenzie Delta or even the Beaufort-Delta; I'm not aware of any lawyers situated in Inuvik. Is there any information available to encourage residents to complete wills?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member's statement, I have a few questions for the Minister of Justice. As I mentioned, there are growing concerns with the wills and estates with my constituents. I would like to ask the Minister: what options do people have when trying to deal with a loved one's estate? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. People don't like to think about what will happen after they pass away. Unfortunately, this means that, on top of grieving the death of a loved one, families are left to deal with their estate. This is made even more complicated if someone died without a will.

The Department of Justice has a Legal Aid Outreach clinic which can provide free advice on wills and estates, and I encourage the Minister to ensure that this important office continues helping residents by assisting with wills. By clearly putting your wishes on paper, families will know how you wanted your estate...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister ensure that we have a dedicated person to help residents to settle estates? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Minister touched on this, but I will ask it anyway: will the Minister look at expanding the Legal Aid outreach office to cover probating wills?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. The Legal Aid Outreach office can only provide advice on how to deal with the estate, but, if there are complications or a dispute between heirs, lawyers are often needed. If Legal Aid was able to assist in probating wills, this may help address this growing issue.

I will have questions for the Minister later today. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would just like to ask the Minister: does had department know the cost to relocate, say, five to 10 bears? I am sure they know the price for one, but, you know, you just have to multiply that by how many bears there are, so does the department have a clear idea of how much it would cost if we had that option?

Clearly, our grizzly bear population is at its highest, as many people do not harvest them anymore. Will the department increase the number of tags of available and not have a zone which limits where hunters can harvest?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a grizzly bear problem in Aklavik. Like last year when I brought up this issue, at the moment, we have up to 13 grizzly bears hanging around at the dump site. Also, as it is starting to get dark now, the bears are starting to bother around the community. This is a threat to the community, as bears are very unpredictable.

Mr. Speaker, my constituents want some action taken to either relocate or put some of the bears down to detour the bears from hanging around the community. In the past, the NR officer was able to put down problem bears and hire residents to keep...