Sandy Lee

Thank you. Just to be clear then, this is for the drafting of the law. How long will that take to bring forward? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question under 2007-08 new initiative for $100,000 for delivery of ground ambulance and highway rescue services. It is on page 14, just before the hospital federal health care funding priorities. I know that this is something that has been in the works for a while because there is unclear jurisdiction and responsibilities with respect to this and lack of consistent rules about who is responsible for paying for ground ambulance and highway rescue services. I know there has been a study done on this to figure out what to do between Health and Social Services...

Mr. Speaker, I just want to close by saying that alcohol abuse and alcoholism is the number one public enemy in the Northwest Territories and we have to take this seriously, and I think in a positive way this is the number one solution. Once we address this, we will have a healthier population; we’ll have reduced costs in hospitals; we’ll have less people in jail; we will have less kids going through family violence, less women being violated. It is the key to our future and we must denormalize abuse and negative impacts of alcohol. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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…capacity. So would the Minister commit to coming up with a focussed strategy by August?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think the key to this is that it has to be focussed, easy to understand, concerted, and it has to be well-resourced; there has to be big money behind that. It has to be community-based; it has to be undertaken by people in communities and every community has to be able to make their own choice about how to deal with it and get totally involved. We also, I think, I believe in communities where there are no RCMP, I think having an alcohol and drug control officer who could enforce the laws that are already in the books about prohibition and control of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I certainly was a beneficiary of really good paying government jobs that afforded me to go to school so I don’t want to deprive that to any other students, but there is a general sentiment that if we were to reduce the wages paid to summer students in government, it could help to hire more students and make it more competitive for the private sector to use some of these students. Maybe a way to make this possible is to make more funding available to the private sector to hire students; not at the same wage level, but a comparable level. Could I ask the...

Thank you. I just want to give my support to this program. I know that it may seem that this kind of program may not be applicable to Yellowknife, but Yellowknife is the biggest aboriginal population in the Territories. I know that in our schools, this has been delivered with a very close relationship with the ENR office in Yellowknife. They take dozens of kids out for a week or so and they teach them how to trap. I know that kids get a lot out this experience. I would say $125,000 is not enough to cover all the communities. The schools probably fund some of the money out of their outdoor and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Minister indicated as far as he was aware. Could I ask the Minister to confirm whether or not there have been a reduction of positions available for summer students? Because the Minister has indicated in his statement yesterday only 195 students have been hired so far. This is the end of May. Summer students are usually hired around this time and we’re not anywhere near meeting the numbers of last year at 343. Thank you.

Just a question, Madam Chair, the Take a Kid Trapping Program. I am wondering if this is accessible by schools. I know that in Yellowknife, YK1 does do this program. I am not sure if they do it under their own funding or they are accessing other government programs. I see that this is a new initiative. I would like to know who is the client base that this program is aimed at. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to add my view or just add my thoughts on this topic to sort of enrich the conversation, perhaps. I don’t know. Let me just put my two cents into this. In looking at this, at first I looked at this and thought, I guess, it is an item that may raise an eyebrow or two. But if you really look at it, maybe it’s the name, maybe they should change the word “conference” to something else because if you look at it as an assembly in the North, it’s very important. We put high value in bringing community people together into one place, wherever that might be, to...