Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could we get the Member to restate that question? Page 8-29 and he was talking about persons needing assistance to live at home? I’m not sure; if he could give us more information, we could answer that.

As long as I’ve been here, for 12 years, that issue has come up. I believe that suggestion has come up very regularly and it’s a decision that the Minister of Finance and government as a whole has to make in coming up and directing that taxation and setting up a direct program that flows from that. There are pros and cons in that, I believe. But it would not be our department’s decision but a government decision.

As the Member knows, all of the Ministers here work with the other Ministers when issues are brought up. When I was in Fort Good Hope we had heard from seniors about various issues, and on our return we had conveyed those concerns, whether it be housing or other departments. We’ve communicated those concerns to the respective Ministers. I will look into seeing how that was followed up, Mr. Speaker.

The Member knows that a Minister does not direct another Minister to do things, but, obviously, we work together to resolve issues that get brought up the by Members and residents. Thank you.

I don’t know where the Member is going with this; I don’t know what his point is. The Sahtu Health Authority gets... They have their budget to run programs. There is some cross-work that happens between the authorities. Stanton might ask Sahtu to pay for some of the staffing time, but I would like to know what the Member is getting at. Thank you.

I have to go back to the opening principle of this budget, which is we do not have a whole lot of new initiatives. So we do not have anything new, I don’t think, than what was there before.

Having said that, the Dehcho Health and Social Services Authority is working on a traditional healing project. We are looking to see what... It’s a study on how to apply some of the traditional practices into modern medicine. It’s not to replace modern medicine but to make more traditional healing practices compatible to modern medicine. We expect that will be done shortly and we need to look for ways to...

I don’t think I could counter that. I think that’s something that could be argued. All sin taxes we have to weigh the balance between providing a disincentive by raising the taxes, but we are aware that those who are severely addicted will get those items no matter what, against their self-interest and the well-being of themselves and the families around them. The flip side of that coin is if even without taxes being raised, probably those other people who because of their addiction issues do not spend money where they should be, on their families, anyway. I don’t think there’s any right or...

Mr. Speaker, we do have a set process on hiring and job description and such that is actually within the mandate of HR. For me, for now, what I want to indicate to the Member and the local leadership in Fort Good Hope is that I like the idea that they are proposing. I would like to see how we can work together to make that happen, because we need to agree on the proposal, agree on the sort of job description and what it is that we are expecting this new position to do. It is about doing things differently within the resources we have. But, so far, I am very interested in pursuing that proposal...

Well, an administration fee is different than a mark-up. Thank you.

Just in order of questions the way the Member raised it. On chronic disease management, which includes diabetes support, the Member asked if we were spending more money in the Sahtu. I answer that we’re not spending more money, but that is not to say we’re not doing the work, because that is part of our core business. The nurses and health care workers in our communities are equipped to help our people with managing chronic diseases, and diabetes is one of them. We use technology, if necessary, to support that. I am aware, in all of my travels in the Sahtu communities, that they have men...

As I recall, I believe we were talking about a campaign similar to Don’t Be a Butthead and there were some suggestions such as Don’t Be a Bottleneck or something like that. That was about two budget cycles ago. We were working on more investment money under Strategic Initiatives committees, but as the Member knows and the Legislature is aware, we’ve had to curb the money available under those initiatives. So the work that we do on addictions and dangers of alcohol abuse and such is done as part of our everyday business. We were not able to launch a whole new program similar to Don’t Be a...