Tom Beaulieu

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I’d hoped that the Standing Committee on Social Programs would have had an opportunity to discuss the Department of Health and Social Services’ response to our recommendations before we began debating in the House or talking about it in the media. However, the response was tabled and the free-for-all has ensued, so I too will now talk about the government’s response.

The Department of Health and Social Services indicated that they did not accept the recommendation for prevention and early intervention in the 2011-2012 budget because the budget had already passed. This...

The last, there are a few smaller items in here, too, but with the time allotted, the last key item again has long-term benefits in cost and is trying to provide for care for elders in the home. Right now the overall government policy doesn’t make it really easy for individuals to care for their elders. If we have an elder -- and we have that situation occurring a few times in both communities that I represent, in Lutselk’e and Fort Resolution -- where younger family members are either living with their elderly parents or their elderly grandparents. Without those members supporting the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is an area that is of great interest to me in the health field; the whole area of treatment and counselling and so on and so forth. Speaking to local health workers, the cost of other health, the cost of people being sick and hospitalized and whatnot, a lot of that is attributed to, I guess, not necessarily all addictions but attributed to alcohol. The health workers seem to think that alcohol is a big, huge contributing factor in small communities for the health of the folks. The communities also seem to have a solution. I’d like to see the department working...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question for the Minister on medical travel. I just wanted to give a little bit of a background on some of the stuff that you’re dealing with at the community level. I’m trying to see if the Minister would look at putting some sort of flexibility into the Medical Travel Policy or the medical travel benefit, I guess it is.

What’s happening is people are facing some hardships. We have experienced in the past and we continue to experience situations where people are sick or injured and have to remain in hospital, whether it be in Yellowknife or Edmonton. Medical...

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell me what the plan is to strike more child and family services committees at the community level? Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of Health on the follow-up to the child and family services response.

Mr. Speaker, there is in excess of $12 million in the area of children’s services. Will the Minister direct her staff to look at a program in the area of early intervention and prevention in as far as child apprehensions go? Thank you.

Can the Minister tell me if there are any discussions at all in the area of employment rates when the department decided to reduce some of the positions. I’m referring to filling positions in communities that have higher employment rates, reducing positions in communities that have lower employment rates. Was there any of that type of discussion in the department?

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to ask questions of the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment on employment in small communities, particularly the client services officer position in Fort Resolution.

Can the Minister tell me if there is any dialogue on how to retain these positions that have been reduced to half time, to full-time positions within the department?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister direct his staff to re-establish a full-time position of the client services officer in Fort Resolution and find work in the department that’s appropriate for full-time position status?

Can the Minister advise me if there are other positions of a client services officer nature that were filled within the South Slave region?