Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to get back to my question with the Minister of Health and Social Services on the cancer in Fort Good Hope. The Minister gave us some numbers, and according to those numbers cancer in Good Hope is pretty high; 20 percent higher than my numbers here than in the rest of the territory, such as colorectal cancer is 24 percent in Good Hope while the territory is 20, breast cancer is 17 in Good Hope and in the territory it’s 16, prostate cancer is 9 percent in the territory, and so forth.
I want to ask the Minister is his department willing to look at any type of research from the community to look at what the heck is going on with the community of Fort Good Hope. Why is the cancer so high? Where are the sources? There are a lot of opinions out there and people are afraid and they’re scared. They’re scared to drink that water from the water reservoir. They’re scared of the Norman Wells oilfield. They’re scared of the federal government buildings that are condemned right now. There are a lot of things that are scaring people right now in Fort Good Hope. Can the Minister work with me to look at a research funding institution to go into Fort Good Hope and find out what is going on with the cancer issue? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Health, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mr. Speaker, yes, the Department of Health and Social Services is prepared to look at research with health and social services from the Sahtu. I have no problem doing that. Thank you.
I just about choked in here. I didn’t know what to say. The Minister said yes right away.
I want to ask the Minister how soon he can work with us to get a research institution into Fort Good Hope to start the process of elimination of the types of cancer that are causing so much grief in the community of Radili Ko?
I am aware that the department has a lot of work on the go now at this time, but I am prepared to talk to the senior management to try to get this going as soon as possible. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Item 8, written questions. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Premier has promised to take action to address the low employment rate in our small communities with large projects. In Aklavik the employment rate is 36 percent. That is below the territory’s average, which is 67 percent. There is simply more people who need work than there are jobs, but we do have one project that is on our government’s red flag priority list A. That is the all-weather access road to the Willow River gravel source.
Honourable Premier, when will construction begin on this project during the 17th Assembly? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. It is not a written question. I will get back to you, Mr. Blake, later today. We will run it by our staff.
