Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to further clarify, this part of CMAS applies right across the whole Department of Education, or is it specific to a certain area? That’s what I was trying to get at in the beginning.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. One thing I forgot to mention is this department, which is about 25 percent of our total operations budget, has $6.5 million in capital expenditures and the Department of Transportation – and I don’t know what percentage of our operations budget – has $112 million. So we seem to have a far larger priority on roads than it is on the education of our young people, in my mind.

I just wanted to say to the Minister that the Minister recognizes with the French schools that there’s a problem. He says he knows it’s coming. I heard him say earlier that he wants to move or the...

Thank you, Madam. Chair. We would like to deal with Tabled Document 115-17(5), Northwest Territories Capital Estimates 2015-2016.

Thanks again to the Minister. The Minister mentioned the report and the 18 recommendations in the report and that they are doing some work on it. There are certainly several of them which I want to highlight. One I did already, but number two was to develop a standardized cancer care process, number seven, establish policies, protocols and mechanisms to ensure there’s good coordination and information flow among professionals, develop and implement breast cancer care after-care, which is something that we need in many different situations, and review the escort policy, which certainly Members...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Health and Social Services and I’d like to follow up on my statement about the breast cancer navigator position. I mentioned in my statement that the position has been empty for quite some time.

I’d like to ask the Minister, first off, if he could give me an update on what the department is doing to fill that breast cancer navigator position at Stanton. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Cancer is a word we hear all too often. Whether we’re just more aware of why people are getting sick now or whether there actually is more cancer amongst our people, it is ever present in our lives and none of us here in this room or elsewhere in our territory, none of us have remained untouched by cancer. It’s a scary business being diagnosed with cancer, and patients are often left to their own devices after a diagnosis.

Over the years, volunteers with the NWT Breast Health/Breast Cancer Action Group have worked very hard to provide supports for breast cancer patients...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister again. It kind of leads into my last question. Another recommendation from the report was that there needs to be an investment within infrastructure within the communities related to food security and provision of foods, specifically construction of community-identified resources as community centres and/or community freezers. So I’d like to say to the Minister, I’m really glad that we have this $500,000 that is being used.

Is it intended that this $500,000 will be an annual amount, and will it be eligible to be spent on things such as community...

Thanks to Minister Abernethy for that response. I think I and many others are looking forward to seeing the action plan finally come to the public.

I mentioned in my statement about a report from 2013, and there’s a number of recommendations in that report. One of them is that there is a need for a federal northern food security innovation fund, and the intent of that fund is to help jumpstart and sustain community-based, community-led food initiatives across the North. This is something which, I think, definitely needs to be addressed.

I’d like to know whether or not the Minister, when he...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today, October 17th, marks International Day to Eradicate Poverty. Across Canada, food banks and anti-poverty advocates are joining together to call for a federal anti-poverty plan. The ask: that the federal government enact systemic change to eradicate poverty and hunger for the thousands of people, some 830,000 in Canada, who use food banks each month and for the millions of others struggling to get by. If food banks, soup kitchens and other front-line agencies across the country were to shut down tomorrow, poverty and hunger would become far more visible.

Food banks...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wish to report progress.

---Carried