Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Would the department look at a comparison if the community would like a new school versus a major upgrade, which at this time makes more sense as to the community coming to a partnership maybe and looking at a new school or, rather, doing the major upgrade? I know the community really does want to look at a new school and I know the financial restrictions that we have. Can the department be open to looking at a partnership if they want to look at a new school for Deline?

That’s good news for the people in Deline, because they were complaining that nobody from PWS has actually talked to the leadership and said, this is the status of your pilings.

I want to ask the Minister if this is something that Public Works has neglected, or if it is something that they are looking to see that they need to talk to the communities on these projects.

I do appreciate the Minister taking the lead on another subject, fixing those toilets up in Colville Lake. The community of Deline wanted to know why Public Works hasn’t talked to them on these pilings. For them it’s still an...

Mr. Speaker, it is a pretty deadly disease here. It takes the young children, the infants. It can cause some serious infection in internal organs and up to the flesh eating disease. People have died from it.

In regard to the territory having only two oral antibiotics that work against the MRSA and doctors don’t want to over-prescribe them and allow the bacteria to build up resistance, why is that? What are we doing to prevent this over-prescription of antibiotics?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to continue with my questioning on this superbug infection rate that arises in the Northwest Territories. I want to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services what is he doing with his other Ministers to work on this in a comprehensive manner, Housing, MACA, Health, Education. What is the Minister doing to put together comprehensive information, preventative measures to deal with this situation? Mostly infants are affected. What is the Minister doing with his other colleagues to deal with this dangerous, infectious superbug?

The Minister hit it right on the head: We have a huge problem in our communities with overcrowding and the housing that we have, the quality of housing that we have and the little amount of water that we can receive during the week because of the amount of funding that goes into support. What is his department doing to work with the Minister of Housing or this government to look at the conditions of the housing, the overcrowding? People are moving into their family’s dwelling. It’s really just an infestation ground to continue with this superbug, and it’s going to be awhile if we’re going to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the increasing concern of a dangerous superbug in the Northwest Territories. It reported in the Globe and Mail, October 13th, on Saturday, that this bug is probably one of the most dangerous superbugs that we can have here in the North. It had quadrupled in the Northwest Territories since 2007. This bug is mostly spread in hospitals, but now they’re starting to find it more in the smaller communities.

I want to ask the Minister of Health what he is doing to help the smaller communities who maybe do not know about this dangerous...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to congratulate all the elected councillors and mayors that just recently had their elections. I take my hat off to the people who put their names forward to serve their people.

The Premier talked about the year now that we’ve been elected, and we are elected by our people to fight for our people when we come to the capital in Yellowknife here to look at the conditions that we live in in our communities. We know the conditions because we come from these small communities.

When we come into a larger centre, we start to see some of the equalities that happen. We...

Given the situation that we are in the Northwest Territories and the limit of resources we have to combat this superbug, would the Minister consider, with all the colleagues, to look at radical change in housing situations? It is like putting a bandage type of solution on, because the root of the issue and the root cause… What is the root cause of this superbug?

One of the contributing factors is overcrowding in homes and children. Is it something that we really need to take a hard look at the housing in our communities and look at the overcrowding? Can the Minister commit that he will have...

The problem of Alberta attracts the community acquired MRSA disease, is this department tracking the community acquired… I know the Minister talked about the monitoring, but is he tracking it?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This deadly virus, this superbug, in the report in the Globe and Mail, penicillin and similar antibiotics no longer work on MRSA. Overcrowding is one of the contributing factors of this deadly disease. Now we are seeing that modern medicine is no longer going to be effective on getting rid of this superbug that we have in the Northwest Territories. Just hearing the Minister say that they are expecting a 44 percent increase on this, this is alarming. This is deadly. Other than antibiotics or penicillin not being the cure for this, how can we get rid of this? We have...