Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, later today I will table the Youth Smoking in the NWT: Descriptive Summary for Smoking Behaviour Among Grades 5 to 9 Students report. This is a summary of findings from the NWT School Tobacco Survey, The first survey was conducted in 1982 and is carried out every four to five years. The purpose of the report is to monitor youth smoking behaviour and related issues.

Mr. Speaker, Youth Smoking in the NWT: Descriptive Summary for Smoking Behaviour Among Grades 5 to 9 Students reflects Health and Social Services ongoing efforts to curb smoking initiation rates...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I might be repeating s some of the things that have already been said, but I feel it’s important that I add my voice to this important debate.

Mr. Speaker, I feel it’s really important for us all to concentrate and be very clear about what this is all about. We are talking about extraordinary measures taken to respond to an extraordinary emergency situation we are faced with. It is important that all leaders in and out of this House understand clearly and act responsibly about the decisions we are making on this issue and how we inform our public about this...

Mr. Speaker, perhaps one day we can have a big debate on that.

Mr. Speaker, wellness includes a lot of things. It includes healthy eating, healthy lifestyle. Our program does not… Canada Health Act, for example, does not support alternative medication, herb medication, acupuncture. I think there are a whole slew of things that our people would like us to cover, because definitely it would include their wellness, also probably their medical condition. The fact is, weight loss reduction services are not part of our Canadian health insurance system. It is not covered anywhere or in any part of the...

Mr. Speaker, those procedures should not have been approved. I cannot go into the details of the individual files, but we have at least half a dozen cases we know of. If we look into the details, we will find that the services that these clients were going to were not in a hospital or in a medical facility but in a private program like YWCA in Edmonton and such. We have to follow the Canada Health Act. Our health care covers hospital and doctor services. I know that there are lots of other services that people would like us to pay for, but we need to follow our policy and pay for what is...

Mr. Speaker, I think the Member knows that we are here to work for the entire Territories and, for his information, the Hay River hospital has seven doctor positions. They have 50 doctor locums that come and go. Fort Smith and Norman Wells have doctors’ offices.

Mr. Speaker, I understand the need to make sure that the Stanton Territorial Hospital is renovated and, more importantly, that the master development is done. I’ve explained before, the master development plan is more than just a footprint and square footage. It’s about what services will be provided at Stanton for years to come. With...

The Member is familiar with our capital planning process in this House. A capital infrastructure like that would go through a master development planning process, which would be used to get into the planning process. It’s the planning process that would determine where that capital ask would fit in. Once it’s approved it will depend on what the building requirements are and depending on how big of a capital project it will be, it will take multi years.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My colleague MLA Hawkins recognized Mr. McMahon and Ms. Margaret Petersen, but sitting with them is Amanda Petersen from Petersen’s Outfitters.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document titled Youth Smoking in the NWT: Descriptive Summary of Smoking Behaviour Among Grade 5 to 9 Students. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned earlier, the department, along with the medical community, is reviewing this program to come up with a plan that could assist its patients. I would recommend the Member and any Members in the House to have names of constituents that they would like us to consider in this review. I would be happy to receive them and get back to the Member separately. Obviously, this is not something I can talk about here. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Earlier this week, I think it was yesterday, I made a statement in the House about Drop the Pop, where we did indicate that we were working with the grocery stores across the Territories to help them be our partnerships. We can’t directly tell them what to sell and not. I think the best way is to encourage them to be our partners and understand that there will always be some people who will make choices for pop rather than something healthier, but as much as possible we would work with our partnerships and grocery stores would be one of them. We are expanding our...