Tom Beaulieu

Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today, my Member's statement is about doctors in the NWT healthcare system. Currently, only 45 per cent of NWT residents have a regular doctor, which means that just over half the population goes from one doctor to another to another as they try to address their own personal health issues. The rest of Canada has not faced the same issue, as the national average sits at 83 per cent, according to the 2017 Statistics Canada report.

Mr. Speaker, the department started working on creating a territorial pool of doctors that would lessen the use of locum doctors...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Chair of the Committee of the Whole leave the chair to report progress. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement, I talked about addictions and mental health. I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services questions around the treatment. I would like to ask the Minister if there have been any discussions about re-opening a cultural-based treatment facility in NWT. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I move that the chair of the Committee of the Whole leave the chair to report progress. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I guess, in all fairness, we all have 10 minutes to speak and so does the Minister Premier. I guess I could speak for a few minutes on the main topic that I would like to cover in this area, and that is the lands and resource negotiations. I see that there are extra, additional resources that the Premier has spoken of, of $595,000 to the aim of finalizing lands and resources and selfgovernment agreements.

I just want to talk a bit about what I am seeing as I guess you would call it a bit of a deficiency in the process. The first one is the land use...

Marsi cho, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I want to speak on the items that appear to be most important to the communities that I represent. I have had many discussions over the years with various groups about all departments, and these are the items that were very specific to education.

The Indigenous language broadcasting, it is not an item here that I have an issue with the budget on. They have over a million dollars in Indigenous language broadcasting. It is the way in which more of the broadcasting can be spread throughout the NWT and how money could do a lot to support the communities where...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the Minister of Finance's budget speech, he mentioned there will be child and youth counsellors in the communities. I think that is an excellent initiative. I would like to ask the Minister of Health if those counsellors will be versed in addiction treatment. Thank you.

I would like to ask the Minister if any of that work is going towards trying to create mobile treatment possibilities or mobile treatment programs, whether it be out of Stanton or Nats’ejee K’eh or anywhere, just something that is mobile where counsellors can go into communities as opposed to the community members going into a treatment centre.

Marsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I would like to talk about a major issue that we are facing in the North. Many people suffer from mental health and addiction issues in the NWT. These issues affect not only the individual, but their family, friends, co-workers, and the community. It is one of the leading causes of disability affecting more than 6.7 million Canadians. It is also very costly to the justice, health, and education systems in the NWT.

Mr. Speaker, we do not have a northern addiction treatment facility in the NWT. Our members have the option to attend treatment centres down South, either in...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee defer further consideration of the estimates for the Department of Executive and Indigenous Affairs at this time. Thank you, Mr. Chair.