Shane Thompson

Thank you, and I thank the Minister for his answer. I thought I missed something, so I greatly appreciate it. I was not trying to be -- I will just leave it at that. So I understand we have the Building Canada Fund, I totally understand that, but what I am looking at is this Community Access Program, where if we increased it we would be able to give these smaller communities a better opportunity to develop the roads, or the access roads, or access to the recreational opportunities in the smaller communities. So I have heard the Minister, and again he is going to come back and say we are in...

Thank you for the non-answer, Minister. I appreciate that. The problem is, again, reality is, we live in the territories, we have small communities, not all big centres are not doing all major projects; however, if we would invest a little bit more money in this in the smaller communities we would see a better impact on the other departments such as Health and ECE through income support. So, again, since we are all here to work on this, as the Minister has said, will the Minister and the department start looking at this and putting a better percentage to these access roads, these kinds of...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the answer from the deputy minister. In regard to leases, I notice there is a reduction there. Is that just amalgamation with the two departments and we are eliminating some of the spaces? Is that what it is? Or is it vehicles or stuff like that? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank my colleagues for addressing some of the concerns. I guess my first one is in regard to the Minister's statement when they are talking about the various highways and winter road contracts to improve transportation infrastructure in the Deh Cho. I thank the Minister and the department for doing that. However, there have been cuts previously that have affected the reductions in this, so I appreciate the department looking forward and trying to get this addressed.

The next thing I want to talk about is the amalgamations, zero-based budgeting. To me, amalgamation, we...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Actually I did send an e-mail, but maybe I will have to pull that out. The community has brought it to my attention. I did forward it from the development corporation and they have asked for work to be done on this section of road. I am trying to get that message out there to the department to work with it.

It is a safety factor. Just recently, they had six elders or six individuals being shipped to Fort Simpson for medical appointments and they got stuck there for six hours. This is the section of road that they are talking about. Can the Minister look into this with the...

I thank the Minister for that answer. Then to the credit of the department in the regional health and social services, we have had a unique situation in the last couple of weeks here and they have done an amazing job with our tragedies, but in regard to dealing with these type of tragedies, can the Minister tell us if the department tries to utilize traditional acknowledge or healing in addressing these issues?

I will try this again. Sambaa K'e winter road. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with the tragedies that have occurred recently in my riding, and this is questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services, can he please advise this House if there are any policies or procedures in place to address tragedies that occur in small communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I think the Minister was thinking, or the deputy minister was thinking or both of them were thinking, that that was my next question, so I thank them that they are going to make that commitment next week and look forward to that presentation as we move forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to introduce all of you to an amazing young lady, Jessie Loutit. I had the pleasure of watching her succeed in sports such as hockey and soccer throughout her years in Fort Simpson.

After graduating from high school in Fort Simpson, she went on to university and decided after two years that she wanted to start rowing with the University of Calgary team. Instantly, she fell in love with the sport and two years later she decided to move to Auckland, New Zealand, to row during the winter months. The time on the water was extremely beneficial...