Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize a couple of individuals: Ravan Bedingfield and Jessica Marriott. Jessica and Ravan are policy analysts with the Department of Health and Social Services and I would like to acknowledge their role for preparing for session and for keeping track of all the work that’s going on in the House, and I want to thank them for all their hard work and commitment. Thank you and it’s great to have you both here.

With respect to the on-the-land programming that we’re currently piloting with the different organizations through the Northwest Territories, each one is radically different, and each one has been designed by communities and Aboriginal governments with clinical partners to suit some specific needs they’re trying to address within their communities. Each one is different. We will have evaluation frameworks around each one. In many ways, each one of these approaches are unique to the Northwest Territories as well as anywhere else, so we are going to put evaluation frameworks in to make sure that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Based on recommendations from the Minister’s Forum on Addictions, we have been pursuing options for on-the-land programming as well as mobile treatment. The on-the-land program may not be the most appropriate locations for specific hard core or hard drug addictions, but we do have some facilities in the South that we are contracted where that might be more appropriate. We’re working with a number of different groups who have come forward with a bunch of different opportunities for on-the-land programming. Some of them are for more after-care follow-up, some of them are...

I am aware of the rates and there are a number of things we’re trying to do. We’re obviously trying to encourage healthier living. We have the Healthy Choices framework where we’re trying to encourage people to eat healthy, live healthy, be healthy, quit smoking and lose weight. All of these things obviously contribute to cancer rates in the Northwest Territories, so we’re trying to help people make healthy choices. We do have system navigators in place to help individuals when they’re through, and we do have health professionals in most of the communities where we’re encouraging individuals...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are a number of things that we’re doing across the Northwest Territories, and each of the authorities is responsible for providing the health professionals in their communities, and nurses are out there trying to encourage people to come into the health centres when they’re not feeling well, to get pre-screening and to get regular well man and well woman clinics done.

Prevention is one thing that we need to be doing, and we’re doing that. The other thing that we need to be doing is making sure that people are getting a timely assessment. I would encourage the...

I don’t have a timeline, but we do plan on doing this review in the 2014-15 fiscal year. We will get to the Member before the end of that fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It has been in effect for a couple months. I’ve been the Minister of Health and Social Services for four months now and it was one of the things that I looked at when I came into the department, because health human resource recruitment is one of the areas that’s obviously important. I’d like to have a strong workforce here in the Northwest Territories.

However, I will check the letter I sent to committee to confirm the date that we did actually suspend these programs temporarily. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I’ve said previously in the House, I have directed the department to do a review of the ISDM to see what make-up of professionals would be appropriate in the smaller communities. I have committed to doing that. I note the department has had some discussions with the Beaufort-Delta, specifically around Tsiigehtchic and the options that have been presented by the Member, but we have not hired an LPN for Tsiigehtchic. We need to finish the other work before we figure out what would be the appropriate course of action. I’d be happy to work with the Member, happy to work...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are committed to developing a good, solid, quality workforce here in the Northwest Territories of health professionals and allied health professionals, but the bottom line is when I became the Minister of Health and Social Services, I did have an opportunity to meet with the division which had recently moved over to HR. There were a number of questions about the effectiveness of our program, and continuing to spend dollars for no effect did not seem like a prudent course of action, so I actually directed the department to begin the development of a comprehensive...

Thank you. We are committed to working with residents on this particular issue and we’re committed to doing a number of things, including some prevention and direct supports to our residents. We have run a number of pilots in different communities on diabetes programming, but I hear the Member, it’s an interesting idea. I would love to sit down with the Member and committee and get a little bit more input on specifically what they’re making reference to and I would be happy to have some additional discussion on that. Thank you.