Sandy Lee

Mr. Speaker, we are in the third phase of the Action Plan on Family Violence. Part of the plan is to have it evaluated. I will undertake to look at where we are with the evaluation and share it with the Members. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Chairman, I could assure the Members that we are on the lookout for things like that. Had there been something that would have been more concrete, I would be sending the information well in advance. As the DM mentioned, this is something we are monitoring. I will report the progress to the Members as they become available. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a situation where a casual conversation between people at the official level was misinterpreted or it is being misread, Mr. Speaker. We have a longstanding tradition with Aurora College where we do fund some programs for them to train people that we need. It is not a normal practice for a department to fund 100 percent of all the programs that the Aurora College do. That is the responsibility of Education, Culture and Employment. It is a normal practice also. We can’t foresee exactly what funding is going to be in perpetuity. Mr. Speaker, my understanding is...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t have the information here on the capital and I don’t know where exactly Colville is, but I will look into that. I can tell you that as the department we’ve worked over the last fiscal year to put more focus on some of the small equipment that has fallen behind in the line-up using the regular process, and my colleagues have been positive in responding in that regard so that we can address some of the equipment issues in the health care system. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, as the Member stated, the incumbent is away from the job for personal reasons. I need to inquire as to where that situation is. Secondly, that position cannot be filled by a casual because of the statutory obligations and requirements that need to be placed on a worker. That couldn’t be done for a casual, but if it is a situation that the person has to be away longer, we have to look at filling the position or filling it temporarily. Once again, I will undertake to look into that and get back to the Member. Thank you.

I would be happy to do that, but could the Member help us with a little bit more detail on what kind of information he’s looking for, because I hope that he can appreciate that there are lots of people spending a lot of time talking to authorities about financial information. Could I ask for some more detail on exactly what he’s looking for? Thank you.

Yes, I will get that information for him. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thought that I already stated on Friday, as well as in answering questions this morning, that we have accepted 62 out of 73 recommendations; 62 out of 73 recommendations. We prefaced our response to the report by saying we support the work that the committee has done. We agree with the committee that we need to do more to enhance family support and working with children. We have put explanations on 10 recommendations that we could not accept as they are written, but if anybody would take the time to read those, we explain why and we talk about how we could work with...

Thank you Mr. Chairman. This is a big and important topic, so I am going to ask the deputy minister, who is also public administrator for a couple of authorities, to elaborate.

But before I do that, I just want to say that you will see from the debt figures that the debt amount, the trend has stabilized somewhat over the last couple of years and also the Member does have a point in saying he believes some of the authorities are underfunded. That might be true, but as a system we need to be able to justify how so, not look at the whole thing but we need to be able to break it down to see where...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This Assembly has made it a priority to focus on prevention by promoting healthy choices and lifestyles and the role of personal and family responsibility. One of the ways that the Government of the Northwest Territories supports this is through the delivery of programs like Drop the Pop. This year the Drop the Pop campaign takes places from January 17, 2011, to February 28, 2011.

Since 2006, Drop the Pop has encouraged students across the three territories to make healthier choices. This year the campaign is more important than ever as childhood obesity continues to be...