Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m going to have Deputy Minister DeLancey respond to that.

At this time our intention was to have the chief medical officer go to Fort Good Hope to meet with the people there. I know I have talked to the chairman of the Sahtu Health and Social Services Board and she’s interested in myself, along with some departmental staff and the MLA to go to the Sahtu and travel to all the communities, including Fort Good Hope, and maybe from that type of discussion could evolve into something that is more focused on this particular issue.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That work is being done with the people at Stanton and it’s part of the planning study that’s in progress at this time.

The department will be publishing the report which covers 2001-2009, actually. The report is scheduled to be released in 2012, the earlier part of 2012 is my hope, and the information will cover such things as cancer incidents, mortality, cancer screening and also the stages of cancer diagnosis.

Thank you, Madam Chair. To my right I have the deputy minister, Debbie DeLancey, Health and Social Services. To my left, the assistant deputy minister, Derek Elkin.

I am aware that the department has a lot of work on the go now at this time, but I am prepared to talk to the senior management to try to get this going as soon as possible. Thank you.

At this time we have within the communities – I’m not sure if it’s all 33 communities – addictions counsellors and also some mental health counsellors at the community which we talked about a little bit last week. But we do have addictions counsellors. That would be a good place for individuals hoping to access, whether it’s residential treatment in the facility or hoping to work with a counsellor to get some sort of programs on the land that could be available through the various non-government organizations or community governments across the territory. Thank you.

The department is looking at that now. We have already had communications from the Member that this was an issue. We looked into the storage of the food, the country foods and so on. I’ve asked the department, specifically Health and Social Services, to look into that issue at this time.

Yes, as the Member responsible for Seniors that is my intention, is to work with the Department of Education on the Seniors Fuel Subsidy Program. Sometimes – the Member is right – the individuals are living with the elder and supporting the elder, but because the policy indicates that they need to have a Revenue Canada form filled out to determine their income, the individual senior loses the fuel subsidy. Also in public housing, sometimes the seniors who are eligible for no rent in public housing will sometimes end up paying rent when they’re getting support from their family.

As the Minister...

Some of the organizations that I spoke of do deal with the fact that individuals, prior to attending treatment, have to essentially be alcohol or drug free for several weeks prior to attending. There’s also a program in the Sally Ann where there’s a withdrawal management system. There’s a unit there that individuals go, to go through withdrawal. With those programs, the intention is to use individuals that are serious about coming to treatment to deal with their issues, they go there, they remain essentially drug free or alcohol free for a certain period of time before they go for treatment...