Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Thursday, February 10, 2011, I will move the following motion: I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that the Speaker be authorized to set such sitting days and hours as the Speaker, after consultation, deems fit to assist with the business before the House.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Premier again. I didn’t, unfortunately, hear an answer to my question. I do hope that the Premier will reconsider this proposed round of consultation and change it to be more meaningful.

I’d like to know from the Premier if this working group and advisory group and whoever else may be involved will be able to give us a definition of poverty prior to September 2011.

Thanks to the Premier. I have to disagree. I think the original Anti-Poverty Alliance is a large group, but it’s not all of the members of the Anti-Poverty Alliance who needed to be on the government’s working group. They certainly would have been happy with a couple of representatives who were not government members.

I think the Premier also suggested that all of the recommendations from the anti-poverty report, the No Place for Poverty report, needed to be accepted by the government and that’s not true. I think if the report is read carefully, there are a couple of priorities that the report...

I’ll have to go and check Hansard tomorrow, but I don’t believe in either of my questions I mentioned the words “working poor.” I’ll leave it at that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to welcome and recognize Mr. Dave Reid, the president of the NWT Teachers’ Association.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have one question. I wanted to follow up to the questions and answers from Mr. Bromley earlier relative to the possible changes to the Extended Health Benefits Program and the concern I think that all Members have with those who are not currently covered. I don’t think there was any argument during the debate on the changes to the Supplementary Health Program that we did not want to cover those people who aren’t covered, and if I understood the Minister correctly, I heard her say that there will not be any consideration of how to cover those people until the 17th...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Forty years ago Canada initially started its fight against poverty with the founding of the National Poverty Foundation, now called Canada Without Poverty. Forty years ago a special senate committee on poverty published a report, a report which opened with the words, “Poverty is the great social issue of our time. Unless we act now, nationally, in a new and purposeful way, five million Canadians will continue to find life a bleak, bitter and never-ending struggle for survival.”

We haven’t made much progress on poverty as a country in the last 40 years, Mr. Speaker, and...

I’m sorry. That didn’t really help. Maybe I should ask the question what do physicians, an approximation of the number that physicians cost us on an annual basis. Thank you.

Thanks for that explanation on the client navigator.

I just have one quick question. The Minister made a statement this week about Drop the Pop and I wondered if I could get an explanation from her, or a bit of an elaboration on whether or not this program will also target energy drinks, which I think are probably even more evil than pop is. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I guess it begs the question to the Minister: if it is a system debt and it has been three years that they have been trying to rework the system debt, how come we haven’t seen any change in the various health authorities? Why are they still working with budgets which are obviously unworkable? They are obviously underfunded.

The Minister referenced a number of things that the department is doing. I support all of those things, but I guess I am wondering why we aren’t seeing some effect of the changes that are happening, the efficiencies that are being found, the reworking of...