Jane Groenewegen

Thank you. I will now rise and report progress.

I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of committee? Mr. Menicoche.

Again, I’d like to applaud the Minister. This is a very, very good and esteemed group of people he’s pulled together for this Minister’s Forum on Addictions. But when we are looking at the terms of reference, could we please, for a change, instead of talking to people who think they know the solutions who aren’t living the issue but only observing the issue, could we please talk to people who are actually living the issue? Could we find a way to get them to talk? Because the Minister asks the question in his statement: I want to know what will make people stop drinking and want to live a...

That’s okay. Thank you.

I thank the Minister for that. I’ll be interested to hear the results of those pilot projects. There are clinical practice guidelines for diabetes. How do we monitor whether health authorities are following these guidelines and how do we know if our efforts to control diabetes are working? What kind of monitoring do we have?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize a friend of our family, Mr. Jeremy Bird, who works for CKLB, a resident of Yellowknife. Not in my riding, but welcome, Jeremy.

Thank you. I will now rise and report progress.

Mr. Speaker, of course, this public proceeding here is a forum as well. If there are people out there in the communities, in all of our communities that are listening to this and hearing this today and do have a problem with addictions, who have problems with alcohol and want to find a way out, who want to find a healthy, happy life, I want them to not only know they can approach this forum but that they can go to their health centre, that they can write a letter to the Minister or their MLA, they can phone us and they can tell us what they think their solution is to this problem. Thank you...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Indeed, the issue of addictions in the Northwest Territories is a very, very perplexing one, and I applaud the Minister that he is trying to do something. However, I agree with my colleague Ms. Bisaro that we have studied this issue to death.

Minister Miltenberger came to Hay River when he was doing his forum on where we should be spending money and stood up and made a very, very eloquent speech about personal responsibility. Maybe we shouldn’t be asking people who are healthy and sober what we should be doing about addictions such as the wonderful people that Mr...

Managing and preventing chronic diseases is a major issue for our health system. Diabetes is only one of our problems. What still needs to be done before a full Chronic Disease Management Model is ruled out and what are the obstacles to that rollout?