Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We invest about $6 million annually in community counselling positions across the Northwest Territories and community counselling services.

With respect to the exact position in Fort Liard, I’m not actually aware of the position in Fort Liard or whether or not it’s vacant, so I will have to have a conversation with the Dehcho Health and Social Services Authority to get a status update, which I will share with the Member and I’ll work with the authority to figure out how to get an incumbent into that position.

We don’t have that type of data, but we will be looking at improving our record keeping and be able to have more solid record keeping and be able to provide more timely statistics to all Members of the House, including Cabinet, once we have passed the Health Information Act and it moves forward via…(inaudible)…we will have the ability to track data on a more real time basis. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have directed the department to pull that information together. It hasn’t been pulled together at this point, but we will get it to the Member at our earliest convenience. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

What we want to do is provide quality care to all the residents of the Northwest Territories. We want to make sure that our residents have access. I’m not going to presuppose the finding of the review of the ISDM, but we are looking for ways to improve the services that are provided in all of our communities. As I’ve indicated, we will be doing that review. I don’t have a timeline in front of me today, but I will get back to the Member with a bit more clarity on how long that review is going to take. I’m really interested in getting input from the Member as well as committee as we move forward...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a couple of different individuals. First I’d like to recognize Dr. Ewan Affleck who I mentioned earlier as the champion of electronic medical records, and he was recently awarded the Order of Canada. I’d like to thank him for his commitment to improving health care services for the Northwest Territories.

I’d also like to recognize another important group of individuals, our Anti-Poverty Advisory Committee, who is helping us with the development of the territorial response to the Anti-Poverty Framework. They are Chief Minnie Letcher of the Liidlii K...

Residents who are required to go south for treatment and/or assessment at the direction of a physician or another health care provider in the Northwest Territories are eligible for medical travel. They would go through the medical travel office, who would arrange the travel, once it’s been approved accordingly. We aren’t requiring individuals to pay for their approved treatments up front, so I’m confused by this one. It shouldn’t be happening, and as I said, I would certainly be happy to hear the details and make sure that we correct it. Thank you.

This gap in the 16 to 18-year-olds is what I think the Member is alluding to. Right now, when a youth turns 16, they are not required to receive care under the Child and Family Services Act. They can, in a sense, opt out and opt out of foster care. But, at the same time, they can opt in and they can volunteer to stay within the system and continue to receive the supports of the foster parent who will continue to receive support until they’re 18. But this is an optional thing. I believe, and I think the 16th Assembly clearly articulated, that we have an obligation as de facto guardians for...

Thank you. This is where it gets really complicated, as I’ve said. If we’ve got a child entering the system and we want to work with the family to keep the child in the community and if the grandparents are willing to, through the foster screening assessment they are going to get the financial support they need to provide for those kids. But as we heard clearly when we went out to the communities during the Child and Family Services review, not all kids are entering the system, but we still need to find a way to support them.

This is something that was recommended to the department to look into...

As I’ve already indicated, we are trying to deal with it on a more holistic level. We are working on promoting healthy living, healthy activity and healthy eating. We are doing that in cooperation with Education, Culture and Employment and MACA. Obviously, we would like to do a little bit more. I think it’s important to educate the people on the differences of natural sugar occurring in food and white sugar, which is more of the problem than the sugar naturally occurring in food.

We need to do a better job. We are going to put something together so that we can help people understand the...

In cooperation with Education, Culture and Employment and MACA, we are obviously encouraging healthy living, healthy eating, healthy activity within our schools and within our youth populations. We do have the Drop the Pop campaign, which is specifically aimed at pop, but by default, we are trying to address some sugar issues there as well.

In this budget, we also have a significant amount of money – $1 million – put into healthy eating for school programs as part of our Early Childhood Development and Anti-Poverty strategies. So there are a number of things we’re trying to do. I personally...