Robert Hawkins

Depending if you’re a girl, woman, man or boy, girls will attempt suicide at higher rates; men and boys will die of suicide more often. First Nations youth die by suicide five or six times more often than their non-Aboriginal counterparts.

To bring this to a close, Canada only spends about seven cents out of every public health care dollar on mental health care, far below the 10 to 11 percent countries like New Zealand the UK spend.

In closing, mental illness is certainly the elephant in the room that we can all see that no one seems to want to talk about or confront. I’ll finish my statement...

Does the Minister see any problem with the issue of reaching out to the citizenship to get some feedback as what the citizens see, the everyday people, the everyday families trying to get job opportunities here in the North, from their perspective on trying to apply for jobs, be it in Yellowknife, be it in the regions, be it even in the very small communities? They would provide great benefit and insight as to the challenges that they see and face. Many people keep reciting the same problems over and over again, and I often wonder: does the government appreciate the circumstances and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, I guess that’s kind of what I’m asking, is would the Minister be willing to apply himself and certainly the department to examining the scope of this particular problem? Banting gave his gift to the world with insulin. We could be giving our gift to the world by protecting them from the arsenic trioxide that could poison the world. All we need is a little bit of initiative and foresight on this problem not to see it as a short gain but as a long gain for environmental stewardship, and that’s what I’m asking the Minister.

Would he be willing to at least look at the...

I don’t think the $10 million prize is actually the problem. I think that’s something we could engage the federal government in, because as we all know, AANDC pays that $1.9 million for care and maintenance, again, for in perpetuity, so it’s not just my lifetime, it’s everybody’s lifetime, forever.

Would the Minister be willing to take this project on with an eye of what’s best for the Northwest Territories and propose it to the federal government through AANDC and ask them that if we could maybe run the logistical administrative side of reaching out to the world on this particular problem...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Is the Minister familiar enough with the legislation to find out if it’s all in regulations? In other words, can we make changes easily through the regulations, or is it through legislative initiative we’d have to tackle some of these particular problems? For the everyday folk there’s a real big difference in timing and efforts to change these types of rules and, as such, I look to the Minister to ask, what’s the easiest way to make these changes if appropriate and certainly where appropriate? Thank you.

In the interim… Well, first I should say thank you to the Minister for recognizing that the program needs to be reviewed and updated, where appropriate, of course. In the interim, many good retailers are providing paper bags which are compostable and certainly biodegradable bags which are still meeting our objective, which is getting plastic bags out of the environment.

Is there anything that the Minister can do today or commit to in the near future that we can stop having these retailers have to charge the same 25 cents as if it’s a regular plastic bag that does not break down in the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Single Use Retail Bag Program has recently had its fifth birthday. It was originally rolled out into stores in 2010 and had its last update in February 2011.

Many of us have come to know and appreciate the fact that the single use bag is being charged at 25 cents per use. That’s on paper, plastic, biodegradable and, certainly, compostable bags.

I’m on record many times supporting responsible environmental initiatives and I certainly support the principle of this retail bag initiative, but we must always be practical in our design. There are notable exemptions. As we...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to touch on a few subjects, a little bit of repeat from my other colleagues, but I do think it’s important to further lend strength and emphasize in certain areas. I’ll certainly bounce around here on a few subjects.

One of the issues I’ve raised repeatedly over the years is a seniors charter. I have yet to see any development of it. I had the former Minister express an interest in it, and I certainly hope the department eventually finds time in something like this. We always seem to talk the talk about how important our seniors are, and many of our health...

I thought that was almost a yes, but just a little ways away from making that final step.

Recently, we’re well aware that the government has been reaching out in Eastern Canada. We’re well familiar with the job fairs that happened throughout, looking for people to be hired. I don’t have the budget as an MLA or else I would do it, but what I’m asking for, is would the Minister look at maybe setting up sort of a working group, discussion group, some public outreach as to what people see as some of the challenges for northern employment? I won’t go through them all. I’ve said pay and benefits...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to follow up a little on the jobs issue I raised yesterday, and we talked about the 1,032 positions out there in one form or another and the 466 that are actively being recruited.

I made a post on my Facebook and I got some really interesting feedback, and one of the particular issues that’s been raised that I thought was interesting, more so in the sense of have we ever done this, is have we ever considered engaging the citizenship to understand and appreciate the practicality of trying to hire people for these jobs? We’re trying to get people in all regions...