Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order under rule 24(k), use of abusive or insulting language of a nature likely to create disorder. I have waited until today to raise this point of order because I wanted to review Hansard. Yesterday, during her Member’s statement, Ms. Green said while speaking of members of the public service, and I quote from page six of the unedited Hansard from Thursday, June 16, 2016, “... while we may not like to speak to it, these higher levels raise possibilities of malfeasance and corruption in this spending of public funds.” On the same page, Mr. Speaker, Ms. Green...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Friday, June 24, 2016, I will move that Bill 5, An Act to Amend the Vital Statistics Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I’m not going to commit at this time to covering fathers during birth, but I will certainly look at exploring the possibility of how we can be, you know, provide better support and other mechanisms. But at the end of the day, our medical travel is incredibly expensive. We have escorts for certain criteria. Criteria like a patient who is under 19 years of age who needs an escort. A patient who is breastfeeding an infant and requires an escort. A patient who has a medical or physical disability of a nature that they require an escort. There’s a lot of criteria that we have to apply and in the...

Mr. Speaker, unless there’s a clinical need, medical travel isn’t available or escorts aren’t available for birthing mothers who have to come to one of the centres, and it is up to the family, the father, to find their own way to the central location where the birthing is going to take place.

Mr. Speaker, we work in cooperation between the departments, and addressing family violence is a priority for the Department of Justice, Department of Health and Social Services. Education, Culture and Employment clearly has a role in helping break down some of this with younger people and youth, and the Status of Women certainly as a partnership. We work together trying to come up with mechanisms and programs that will help us break down the stigma and reduce family violence. I hear the Member. I’m not familiar with the program that she is describing. I’d certainly love to sit down with the...

Mr. Speaker, in 2015, the Department of Health and Social Services worked with the Program Review Office to develop a comprehensive evaluation of framework for the What Will It Take? campaign. Based on this framework, the new participation feedback forms are being developed, and they will be completed in time to provide to participants during the 201617 delivery of What Will It Take?, and that will help us get the information and evaluate the effectiveness of the program longterm.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We tried to the last fiscal year to hire some positions and we weren’t able to get anybody until February 2015 is actually when I believe we were able to get those individuals into that position. I’ll have to confirm. I don’t believe they’re term positions, but I will confirm whether or not they are term, and if they are term what is the end date. I do believe they’re indeterminate at this point, but I will confirm. Thank you. Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, anything’s possible, but we can’t really do anything until we actually have the program designed which is what we’ve hired these individuals to do. Given that they have the appropriate background, it may be appropriate to do so, but it would also depend on whether or not the incumbents were interested in doing that. There’s a lot of ifs here, Mr. Speaker, but we’re open to creativity.

Mr. Speaker, those positions work for or are, rather, employed by the Department of the Executive, but the Department of the Executive has been engaged with the network, and the government services officers are their employees. The health and social services authority’s frontline staff works with the community level with our government services officers and understand and appreciate their role in assisting elders in accessing programs and services. , As part of implementing the screening tools, the Department of Health and Social Services will work with the Executive as well as the territorial...

The document I’m tabling today isn’t a Government of the Northwest Territories document. It is actually a document of the Seniors’ Society, but we have participated with them, and we will certainly continue to work with them to support any initiatives to limit or reduce the amount of abuse of seniors. The individual actions are the actions identified within that report, which is not a government document. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.