Sandy Lee

Mr. Speaker, the Member is making correlation of analysis on this data. I am not sure if it is a connection that experts who look at these things make, but I would be happy... I have no problem looking at what the Member is suggesting.

I could tell you that in Fort Smith, since we have had a Midwifery Program, there have been 200 births and about 54 percent of those births have been attended to by the midwives. Within the Territories, Fort Smith has the most comprehensive complement of midwives and even then we have about only 50 percent, or a little less than 50 percent births still happen at...

Mr. Speaker, yes, we would obviously do that. I would commit to do that. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I have said on many occasions that we believe, yes, all of our authorities are not necessarily under right budget. We are working toward right budget for all of the authorities. You can’t be looking at Stanton and Beau-Del separately, Mr. Speaker. The Member has said that we all know that Stanton is underfunded and if you do a zero-based review, you will know. I have to disagree with the Member on both accounts. We do not necessarily know. You can’t just make a statement that Stanton is underfunded, and a zero-based review would only tell you how much money you are spending to do...

Mr. Speaker, I will make sure that that is part of our review process. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Before I answer that question, I just wanted to comment that the Member mentioned something about that the administration is denying or somehow hiding the deficit. I want everybody to know that we do regular reporting of the deficit situation of the entire structure. Every three months Members get briefed regularly about the deficit situation, so nobody is denying anything about the deficit situation.

Secondly, Mr. Speaker, while I believe it’s important for us to have important discussions here, it is important for us not to be abusive towards the staff. Mr. Speaker, we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This year we recognized NWT Mental Wellness Week from February 6 to 12, 2011, with the theme Mental Health for Everyone. It is an opportunity to raise awareness about the importance of maintaining good mental health and to work towards reducing the stigma of mental illness.

The NWT celebrates Mental Wellness Week several months earlier than the rest of Canada. We can all appreciate that during the cold dark days of February, good mental health should be on our all our minds.

Mr. Speaker, in Canada, one in five people will experience a mental health issue such as bipolar...

I believe those two issues that the Member raises are part of the review and I hope to have the results by April-May and we can have further discussion on that. After-care is obviously a part of the needs of our community and when we are talking to the people that are delivering it, I’m sure that’s being raised, as well as some of the legislation that might need to be changed.

The audit was conducted by Education, Culture and Employment. I have been working with the Minister on that. I do not have the recent updated information on it. I’m sorry. I will undertake to get back to him on it. Thank you.

We do provide, for example, we do have a day shelter program which is a form of... I mean, we are not obviously the users of that facility, don’t stay there, but we do serve the same clients that come out of Salvation Army or other homes in Yellowknife. We have funded the SideDoor Youth Centre with one of these two programs. We provide funding to Salvation Army, Centre for Northern Families and YWCA, so that is sort of the multi-spectrum of funding that we provide to different groups that deal with the homeless population or, you know, it is not entirely accurate to say that none of that money...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, we have a program and policy to address the persons with disabilities. Thank you.