Norman Yakeleya

The department has a proposal that’s written with substantial numbers on there. It’s in front of the Minister. The two other ones the Minister talked about are from Tulita and Fort Good Hope. It’s a concept idea and they are hoping that their proposals will be on their way.

I’m asking the Minister, given that we have one substantial proposal from Norman Wells south on the Mackenzie Valley Highway to start preparing for the Mackenzie Valley Highway – it is coming – given this, hoping we get favourable responses to create a position in the Sahtu, that would be a start of having a regional office...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve talked about the Sahtu region and I want to follow up, and it’s in regard to the hopes and aspirations and visions of the Sahtu people. I want to ask questions to the Minister of Transportation in regard to doing the small steps for our region to look at, hopefully, one day becoming a stand-alone, breakaway region.

I want to ask the Minister of Transportation, given that we have a winter road and the airport is operating out of Inuvik and the winter road is operating out of Simpson, can the Minister look within his department to see if there is any way of creating...

Mr. Chair, that’s very strange. We were going in one direction and the Minister is talking about going in the other direction, training nurses for palliative care. I thought we were moving along there. Was this supported by the community of Deline to say, okay, we’re going to go through some training, and training the nurses to provide palliative care to the community nurses? Something has gone a little wacko here. Can I get the department to respond to this?

Mr. Chair, I want to ask the Minister on this page in regards to the therapeutic services to the regions, and I’ll speak for the Sahtu in regards to the speech-language specialist pathologist coming in. Is that program being utilized in the Sahtu? I understand that when a speech-language person comes into our region they’re well received by our people in that area. It seems like we need to have more of her or him come in to do some work with our students. Is there an evaluation as to being in our region that this is what they are finding, either to request more support or say we need a...

Mr. Chair, thank you. I’d like to ask the Minister how many children, if he can possibly be able to provide me with a breakdown of the Aboriginal children in foster care in the Northwest Territories. There might be different levels of care for the children, if he could somehow get that information to me.

That’s certainly good news on this side of the House here. I look forward to the Minister’s follow-up.

Lately I’ve been trying to address the problems experienced by the residential school survivors who have been convicted of a violent or sexual crime and who have been turned away from addictions treatment programs. These men are falling between the cracks.

As an alternative, will the Minister commit to funding intensive individual therapy sessions for these men, or looking at a mobile treatment program?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a big bone to pick with the Department of Health and Social Services. The Northwest Territories has the largest per capita population of residential school survivors in the country, and the distressed voices of residential school survivors are constantly ringing in my ears, but the department gives one excuse after another. It says it doesn’t have enough money for a full continuum of mental health and addictions services. Things like one-on-one therapy, made-in-the-North residential treatment and after-care for recovering addicts.

It’s time for a reality check. No...

The last count, as the Minister of Education said, there’s 5,500 so far that he knows of, of people in the Northwest Territories who have attended the residential schools. I say that number is higher, up to at least 10,000. That is devastating in the Northwest Territories. If you look at the history of the residential schools and the terrible effect it had on residential school survivors and their mental health, we have yet to come a long, long way to provide good mental health. So I’d be happy to share this with the Minister.

I want to ask, has this department looked at any type of mobile...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to continue my questions to the Minister of Health and Social Services in regard to the mental health services provided in our small communities.

The Minister’s Forum on Addictions and Community Wellness, Healing Voices, has 67 recommendations and 12 members that visit 21 communities. In there, in the recommendations, 47 to 51 talks specifically about mental health in our communities and these recommendations are very, I would say, shallow. So I want to ask the Minister, this indication as to the type of mental health support in our small communities, it’s really...

My question for the Minister of Health, I’ve been told that one of the weaknesses of the Nats'ejee K'eh facility was its failure to fully make use of the free counselling offered by Health Canada to residential school survivors. Can the Minister comment on this claim?