Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to rise today to talk about a potential idea of how we can help improve the health of our children and youth in the Northwest Territories. I firmly believe that the empowerment of parents to ensure that a child is fed and taken care of properly is certainly on their shoulders and within their abilities, but I also believe the territorial government has a supporting role to help provide, focus and promote health delivery ideas to help feed children and youth of our Territory.
Mr. Speaker, today I’d like to discuss something I think could help these children. The government could develop a program, a grant system, to provide NWT children and youth with a multivitamin on a daily basis. Multivitamins could be distributed through daycares, day homes, preschools and, certainly, regular schools. In this way we could improve the nutrition of many young children and our youth in our Northwest Territories.
We are well aware that children who are regularly provided with nutritional meals are better able to cope with the demands of schools, they progress faster in learning, and getting enough to eat sometimes does not necessarily guarantee that that will make sure that they get the most out of the foods that they need. Mr. Speaker, sometimes children are not eating all the nutritional foods that we would like them too, but a multivitamin could be that bridge to make sure this happens, because we all know the high cost of good foods here in this Territory.
We have been hearing discussions about greater need for vitamin D among northern populations because of the reduced hours of sunlight. As well, children tend not to play outside as much these days as we did in the past. A multivitamin could address the need for children and teenagers to get those important nutrients such as vitamin A, vitamin B2, zinc, potassium, magnesium, calcium and iron. Mr. Speaker, a multivitamin can be the source of a great opportunity to make sure these kids are healthy and learning. Mr. Speaker, I think a universal program that is provided to the schools and day care facilities could go a long way to help improve the health of our students and our youth.
Mr. Speaker, when I was a young child growing up, our schools offered multivitamins and I think it was a good measure and a good show of support for a government that cared about their youth and the growing path that they take. Mr. Speaker, I think this is something that I’d like to see if the Department of Education, Culture and Employment examine and consider as we go forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
