Sandy Lee

Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding — and I’d be happy to look into that — that as the system stands now, as long as the parties agree on the adoption arrangement, they put the documents together through the adoptions commissioner in regional offices. They just have to submit that to the Supreme Court, and the department issues adoption certificates thereafter. In the situation that the Member has brought forward to me, there were some logistical errors and uncompleted documents that caused difficulty.

I just want to reiterate that the custom adoption process is quite simplified. It’s a process...

We’ve been very busy with a lot of things. One of the things we are working on is some new initiatives and new ideas in time for the next business plan process. As a new Minister in a new government and Minister Responsible for the Status of Women, it’s something that I’d like to look into further. Hopefully within the next two or three months we can have some documents to review and discuss.

Mr. Speaker, first I’d like to thank the Member for the statement, which sounded like music to my ears.

Mr. Speaker, on the question the Member is asking, I have to say that my understanding…. I don’t have all the detailed information with me on the gender-based analysis, but it’s something that has been going on in many different jurisdictions. Also, there has been some work been going on by previous governments. I’m going to have to make a commitment now that I’d be happy to look into that and come back to the Member to see where we are with that.

Mr. Speaker, I think one thing we should be aware of is the fact that adoptions of any kind — and that includes custom adoptions — make an arrangement between a parent and child more like the natural parent and child relationship, in that once you adopt a child, you become responsible for all of their financial issues and other responsibilities that a natural parent would. The adoption process legalizes that relationship. This is a question that often comes up in cases comparing foster-parent situations to adoption. Once you adopt a child or if a grandparent adopts a child, a lot of financial...

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Member for the question and for talking to me about it.

I can advise the Member and the House that normally a custom adoption process should not take that long at all. It’s quite a routine process. The department does not have a direct role to play. It merely ratifies adoptions that have been agreed to. Usually this is a pretty speedy process and without too much hardship.

Mr. Speaker, I’m not going to help the Member read that letter. The paragraph before the paragraph that he’s quoting, which he is reading out of context, I say again, speaks about case-management approach and two-way approach. The part that the Member is quoting is about the responsibility of the client to contact, but that is only a little part of what you’ll have to do, and that is a part of a client-focused and client-driven recovery program that is very, very important for anybody who wants to combat their addiction for life.

Mr. Speaker, I state again that there are follow-up processes, that there are aftercare programs within our alcohol and drug addiction programming. I’m saying to the Member again: we do that already. That is my answer. I am not being stubborn; I am giving the answers. We do that work already, and the workers that we have in our communities do that already.

Mr. Speaker, the Department of Health and Social Services, the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority, and Capital Health Authority in Edmonton are working with the leadership and residents of Aklavik to investigate the incidence of H. pylori infection in the community.

A team of 25 health professionals and researchers from Capital Health and the University of Alberta, working together with the employees of the G.N.W.T., spent four days in Aklavik in February. They took tissue samples from 300 persons — every consenting adult in the community.

These tissue samples will be examined...

Mr. Speaker, as I stated two days ago in referring to that letter, there is another paragraph in that letter which shows a very client-focused, case-management approach where any resident from the Northwest Territories who gets to go to any kind of treatment program, before they are discharged, are encouraged to work out an aftercare program. They have a say in who could help them with their aftercare and to stay in the sober-for-life program, whether they be friends, whether they be addiction workers, whether they be AA programs. They work out the package, and they work with the workers.

So in...

Mr. Speaker, my two-page letter, which the Member tabled, was in follow-up to the questions that he asked in the first session. If you read that letter in totality, it does state that we do all the work that needs to be done between pre-treatment, the treatment issues, post-treatment, aftercare.

This government in the last five years has spent millions of dollars. We have hired over 40 community wellness workers as well as mental health and addiction coordinators, and they’re actively in the healing process of anybody who comes to their attention. I believe that the program covers all of that...