Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have two motions to go and then we’ll move on to Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have some questions. I don’t really have comments, but in going over the bill at committee, there were a number of things that I wondered about. Maybe I can just, sort of, wonder those out loud and then the Minister can respond.

We haven’t seen a bill like this every year and I wondered if I could get a sense of the trend over the last, say, 10 years or even five years of how much we are writing off annually. Is it an amount that’s going up or going down?

I also wondered about the policies and the guidelines that we use to write off debts. I know these are, as they...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to, first of all, as did Mr. Moses, recognize the actions of Mr. Leef to bring his private member’s bill to the Parliament of Canada. It’s a bill that will assist Northerners right across the whole of the North.

I’d like to thank my colleagues who have spoken in favour of the bill and I’d like to thank the seconder of the motion, Mr. Moses, for doing that job for me. I’m pleased to hear that there’s recognition of the need to address the problem of FASD by Members and by Cabinet alike. I really appreciate that.

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the Minister and staff for that. So this was only a portion of the operation of the lab. So the private sector was offset totally by revenue, if I heard that. So then we have a corresponding… I think it’s 50 percent of the costs of the lab that we are paying for, or is there revenue to offset our portion of costs as well? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. WHEREAS Bill C-583, An Act to Amend the Criminal Code (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder), is before the House of Commons;

AND WHEREAS Bill C-583 seeks to define fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) in the Criminal Code and to allow the courts to order assessments and consider mitigating circumstances where FASD contributes to the offence;

AND WHEREAS fetal alcohol spectrum disorder is an incurable developmental disability resulting from exposure to alcohol before birth;

AND WHEREAS 43 percent of the NWT population regularly consumes five or more drinks per occasion...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I seem to have been labeled as anti-iPad and anti-corporate sponsorship. I’m not quite sure why. Maybe because I expressed a concern with the fact that we don’t have a policy to deal with corporate sponsorships.

I am not against corporate sponsorship. I think I need to impress upon people that I am making a distinction between corporate money going to government and corporate money going to a sporting event, for instance.

We are – and I use us all in this room – we are the government. By putting a name on a piece of equipment, we are endorsing that organization, that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. The Minister is much closer to the Minister of AANDC than the other Members here in the House and the general public, so I’d like to know if the Minister can tell me when he might expect a decision. Thank you.

Yes, it is a whole different debate and it kind of goes to the crux of this issue for me. There’s the issue of getting $5,000 from a company and putting their logo on a sign at an event. This is a different issue, in my mind, where conceivably, because we don’t know yet what’s going to happen, but every time somebody opens up this iPad that a corporate logo is going to pop up or a corporate name is going to pop up, or every time they turn the iPad over they’re going to see a corporate logo pasted on the back of the material or the iPad. I see that as very different from a one time or even a...

Thanks to the Minister for that explanation. I guess I’m just not exactly sure, my understanding is that this is a voluntary service that parents do not have to have their kids tested at birth.

So I’d like to know from the Minister, he said that the program runs in all birthing centres, but that presumably means that if a child is born, for instance, in Alberta, they have to go to Edmonton to be born, if they’re not screened there, when they come back here do we know whether or not they’ve been screened?

Can the Minister confirm to me or give me some assurance that every child in the NWT, any...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that contribution agreements with the health and social services authorities be immediately amended to include a performance component clearly indicating that funding is contingent on compliance with the Child and Family Services Act. Thank you.