Tom Beaulieu

The plan is to go to 50 percent of communities, 16 or 17 communities. We haven’t picked the communities yet. I think once we have our forum, that we’ve gone to the Members to ask them to provide us names of people who would work well in this forum, and then I think we’re going to go sit down with the forum and make a decision on which communities we would have to attend to have the greatest impact.

Thank you. Aside from what is already in the budget for community counselling, we are trying to now work with our department and within our department to develop wellness plans with all of the communities. Also, tomorrow there will be a Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan released. We’re going to use that plan over the next three years to try to address the backlog that was created by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s work, and then also having the federal government really not having enough resources at the communities to address all of the issues that came about from people...

Thank you, Madam Chair. A lot of the initial work is going to be based in Fort Good Hope and Fort Resolution, with the request from those communities that they had high cancer rates, so we’ve determined that at least Fort Resolution does have higher cancer rates than normal and that Fort Good Hope was marginally higher than the other communities within the Sahtu. There is going to be some work done in there, but the understanding and the plan is to expand to all of the communities so that this work is occurring in all communities where we’re looking at cancer prevention through lifestyle...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m referring to the one treatment centre we have in the Northwest Territories, Nats’ejee K’eh, and then, when required, people are sent to treatment centres in the South also.

The majority is definitely travel. We think that this is an item that is worthy of doing. We have, as part of the Minister’s forum, the department’s Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan. It’s an element within that plan. What we’re trying to do is get in to have at least all of the members of this forum to go into at least half of the communities across the territory to make sure that we are trying to spend some money on prevention, so that we spend the money in the right places so that in the future we’re deferring or we will avoid health costs. We’re saying this is an upfront investment...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is my privilege to rise today to express my support and appreciation for the great work accomplished by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

This initiative has been no small task. The commission visited our communities, set up supports, and provided a forum to allow our survivors to share their pain and begin to heal. This is a significant accomplishment.

I would like to acknowledge the fourth anniversary of the apology by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and the work of his government, especially Minister Leona Aglukkaq, that has led to this day.

I would also like...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The $75,000 is to fund research into the best practices of early childhood interventions, specifically in collaboration with the Health and Economic Research Institute, to develop a best return on investment for Early Childhood Development Strategy.

I have asked the Joint Leadership Council, that’s the chairpersons and the public administrators of all the health and social services authorities, and they’ve had a discussion with their CEOs to put a recruitment strategy together for physicians. Within that recruitment strategy we are asking each of them to develop various ways where they can recruit physicians to the regions. Some initial discussions we are having with the health and social services authorities are fairly interesting, and we’re hoping that we will have a plan that we can move forward with by September, or we will have a...

I was not able to get that information together today. I will agree to provide that information to the Member as soon as I have that information. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, once the legislative proposal is developed and we share that, we will go through the regular process. We will assume that this one will require a considerable amount of consultation.