Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I asked the government if they would put the challenge, the same as us, out to our communities, talk to our youth right through this forum right now, in this time, and ask if they would help us get help in our region to support the Minister and themselves and to put a challenge out there so that the youth can also help with this forum. We don’t have to do things for them. Let them do things for themselves. I put the challenge out there.
Would the Minister put some form of challenge to the people, along with us to our young people, that if they want to live, they should be working on things like this that will help them with our elders who are waiting to pass on the good words.
Certainly, one of the good opportunities for youth and elders alike to speak on health issues and addictions issues is going to be during the Minister’s Forum on Addictions when they travel to the various communities across the North. Having said that, yes, I would work on something with the Minister responsible for Youth. It may not mean that we need to get some money together. It could mean as simple as the Member indicates, just challenging them to come to such a forum or conference to have an opportunity to hear firsthand what the elders have to say about the situations in the communities.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated in my Member’s statement, we do have a situation in the Northwest Territories with a lot of people who are heavily overweight, and my question to the Minister of Health is: What current programs are available to people that are looking to assist themselves in losing weight?
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Other than counselling, other types of things including the people like the physicians themselves, dietitians, psychiatrists, mental health counsellors, nutritionists, internal medicine services and those types of things. We don’t have any other type of program. We are working with, I believe it’s the Alberta Health Services. They are willing to provide some of the modules they use to address the issue of morbid obesity.
I was part of that program and the Alberta program and their demand is very high. I think they have kind of limited the amount of use that we have on their program. I’d like to ask the Minister, has the Department of Health in the past funded weight loss programs such as lap bands or gastric bypass programs?
There is no indication that Health and Social Services has funded the laparoscopic adjustment band surgery in the past. What I do know is it is not an insured service in the NWT.
I’d like to ask the Minister if he would commit to looking into the funding of lap bands surgery to help those people who are morbidly obese.
Interestingly enough, I believe that there is an actual cost benefit to this type of surgery in the system. As the Member indicated, all of the reduction in medications and healthier life for individuals and everything, I believe that there is a cost benefit to this type of thing. Weighing those options, I would look into what it would take to see if the system can take a serious look at the laparoscopic adjustment band surgery.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to also see if the Minister would commit to looking into setting up criteria of who is eligible, along with a complete weight loss program similar to other jurisdictions such as he indicated, in Alberta. Can we have a matching type of program that will assist our people in the Northwest Territories to have healthy living?
I think we can do that. Since 63 percent of the population of the Northwest Territories considers themselves to be overweight or are considered to be overweight, we couldn’t do everyone, so I would say that we would have to have some other indication that these individuals would be eligible should this ever become part of our system.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask some questions further to my previous questions to the Minister of Health and Social Services. The Minister responded to my questions in regard to the Minister’s Forum on Addictions that they will go out to the community and ask questions. But I understand from the Minister’s comments that this forum is going to communities with a blank page and basically saying, tell us what to do, fill up this page for us. I would like to ask the Minister if in his experience – it certainly is mine – is it better to go with a plan and ask for critical analysis of a plan or is it better to go with a blank page and say fill this up?
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of for Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
The initial meeting, which starts tomorrow and then will go all day tomorrow and Saturday, they are going to sit down and this is going to be their very first initial meeting. This is a new thing. They’re going to determine what is the best method of getting information. It’s possible that in some cases they will be seeking a lot of recommendations and a lot of information. I think they’re also going to put some stuff together that will provoke discussion in the right direction.
I’m still a little confused. The Minister says that they’re going provoke discussion in the right direction. Well, what is the right direction? The Minister is saying that he’s going to go and ask people to tell him what to do.
My second question to him would be if we’re going to visit communities – and I have to assume there’s an opportunity for all 33 communities to have input – what if he gets 33 different solutions? How is the forum or how is the Minister going to take these 33 different solutions and turn them into something that we can actually implement and work with?
We know that the general right direction is to try to reduce the amount of alcohol that’s being consumed across the territory in the communities. That is fairly general. We’re hoping that we’re not going to get 33 different types of recommendations or sets of recommendations from the communities. Firstly, we’re probably going to go into about 18 to 20 communities. Secondly, there are going to be four or five different groups. I guess, one, two, four different groups that are going to be travelling. They’re going to have a little different set of skills that they’re going to bring to the table. They’re going to have the right general direction, but at the end of the day, each of these groups are going to try to come up with what we think would be the best bang for our buck on each of these areas that are being recommended by the communities.
I wish this group luck, because I think they’ve got a very tough road ahead of them.
The Minister’s indicated there is an opportunity for input. I’d like to ask the Minister about opportunity for input from the general public. I’m sure there will be people out there in the general public who would like to provide their opinion, whether or not they meet with the forum or not.
What is the Minister doing to provide that opportunity to the general public? Is there an on-line component to this Minister’s forum? Will there be an opportunity for people to e-mail? Any of those things.
We didn’t think of on-line questions to work in alongside of this forum, but it’s a good idea. I’ll discuss that with the forum in the morning when I meet with them.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m really glad the Minister has recognized that at least one good idea comes from this side of the House.
The Minister has indicated that once these recommendations are in that there will be a rearrangement or a reorganization of department resources to implement whatever it is we’ve got coming forward. With the current resources, we haven’t had success to date. I’d like to know from the Minister why he expects that we will get success after this Minister’s forum without any new resources.
I have to think it will be successful or I wouldn’t be doing this. I think the success is there because the recommendations are going to be from the communities. When we travel into the communities, communities say government doesn’t listen to them. That’s what we want to do. We want to listen to the people. We want to listen to all people.
I mean, there’s one forum that’s going to be dealing with just Yellowknife and Hay River. Because of the size of the city, we’re going to try to do a system where we’re going to sit down with them and ask the people on the forum how would they recommend that we go out to try to encompass as much of the community recommendations as possible. Maybe the recommendation will be that for the city of Yellowknife, in order to reach out, we’re going to have to do surveys on-line or communications through television, radio and so on. For that reason, I think a solution is going to come from the communities. They should know. They’re the ones that are seeing the issues day in and day out and they must have a solution. We’ll go out and find that solution and put our money towards that.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Indeed, the issue of addictions in the Northwest Territories is a very, very perplexing one, and I applaud the Minister that he is trying to do something. However, I agree with my colleague Ms. Bisaro that we have studied this issue to death.
Minister Miltenberger came to Hay River when he was doing his forum on where we should be spending money and stood up and made a very, very eloquent speech about personal responsibility. Maybe we shouldn’t be asking people who are healthy and sober what we should be doing about addictions such as the wonderful people that Mr. Beaulieu has appointed to this forum. Maybe we should go and ask the people who are doing the drinking what the solution is.
Because you know what? In my 17 years as an MLA, I haven’t had very many people come up to me and go, oh, Jane, please help me, I have a drinking problem. I’m addicted to alcohol. Where can I get help? My gosh, if one person came forward and said I have a drinking problem, I need help, we’d be so all over them. We have so much out there to help them, but the problem is that the people that have the problem that we’re studying as the issue aren’t asking for the help. They’re more thinking about how can I keep drinking and pay for my house, or how can I sustain my drinking habit and still have a roof over my head or food in my cupboard.
Anyway, sorry. I know I’m going on about this as a Member’s statement. I’d like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services who’s on his committee.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
There are 12 people. We started off with 14. I could name them. In Beaufort-Delta we had asked Hazel Nerysoo, Lawrence Norbert, Freddie Carmichael and Ann Kasook to sit on that and two of them dropped out, Ann Kasook and Freddie Carmichael. In part of the meeting tomorrow we’re going to discuss the possibility of replacing them.
In the Sahtu/Tlicho we have Paul Andrew, Marie Adele Rabesca and Charlie Neyelle. I understand that Charlie Neyelle is contemplating not participating.
In Hay River/Yellowknife we have Jill Taylor, Laurie Sarkadi and Frank Yakimchuk.
In South Slave we have JoAnne Deneron, Pat Martel, Dave Poitras and Wilfred Simon.
Again, I’d like to applaud the Minister. This is a very, very good and esteemed group of people he’s pulled together for this Minister’s Forum on Addictions. But when we are looking at the terms of reference, could we please, for a change, instead of talking to people who think they know the solutions who aren’t living the issue but only observing the issue, could we please talk to people who are actually living the issue? Could we find a way to get them to talk? Because the Minister asks the question in his statement: I want to know what will make people stop drinking and want to live a happy life. That’s a very complex question and I suggest we should be asking the people who have got the addictions.
Yes, we will pass that information on to the forum. I guess many people on the forum may be listening to us today discuss this, but that can be something that we will put into the system. We will encourage people who are currently suffering from alcoholism to attend the forums. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, of course, this public proceeding here is a forum as well. If there are people out there in the communities, in all of our communities that are listening to this and hearing this today and do have a problem with addictions, who have problems with alcohol and want to find a way out, who want to find a healthy, happy life, I want them to not only know they can approach this forum but that they can go to their health centre, that they can write a letter to the Minister or their MLA, they can phone us and they can tell us what they think their solution is to this problem. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, that’s a good idea. Yes, I too will encourage that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Colleagues, I’m going to remind Members today, I saw six Members going off on their cell phones. There is no cell phone usage in the House. I am not going to name names, but enough is enough. Give your colleagues the courtesy of their questions and listening to what is going on in the House. I am not going to bring it up again. Thank you.
The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 8 on the Order Paper. Thank you.
---Unanimous consent granted
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I just want to raise an issue with the Minister of ITI. It has come to my attention that there was a letter of complaint written about the Blackstone Territorial Park. Tourists found it in a sad state of repairs. The washrooms weren’t working, showers weren’t working, trailer dump station wasn’t working. When tourists travel in our region, we have to have good park facilities. They do mention that the staff there was very friendly and courteous and tried to be helpful whenever they could, but it seemed that, over time, Blackstone is apparently being neglected for maintenance. I’m sure that the department is aware of it, and that’s my first question.
Is the department aware of the sad state of repair as reported by tourists at the Blackstone Territorial Park? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am aware of that complaint. We do get a lot of compliments on Blackstone as well, so I wanted to put that out there.
Just last week we approved the meager capital budget for ITI. It did include some money for Blackstone Park, replacement of the kitchen shelter facility at Blackstone as well as a contractor residence at Blackstone. It’s a beautiful park. We do need to find additional capital dollars every year and fight for those capital dollars to go into our parks and campgrounds around the NWT. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I am glad it will have upgraded facilities, but the complaint talks about repairs to the current, existing facilities.
What will be done to fix these deficiencies that were noted at the Blackstone Territorial Park? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, before the parks close up each and every year, there is an inventory taken of necessary repairs that are required not just at Blackstone but at other territorial parks around the territory. We do our best with maintenance staff and contractors to ensure what can be fixed, with the budget that we have, is fixed and repaired before next park season begins. Thank you.
I’m glad that there is inventory taken of facilities. Is there a plan to fix these deficiencies as they are noted, particularly the Blackstone? Is there a plan to fix the noted deficiencies? I’m not too sure if it came out in the inventory as well. In fact, I wouldn’t mind seeing a copy of that year-end report as well. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to work with the Member and get him the year-end status report from Blackstone. To the letter that the Member cited, we have responded, as well, to those folks who stayed at Blackstone. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Mr. Speaker, just one more follow-up. I didn’t hear the Minister respond to what specifically they will be doing at the Blackstone Territorial Park to fix those deficiencies. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, for that detail, I’ll get that from the department and the region. We’ll get that to the Member as well. I will let the Member know exactly what we plan to do there before next park season. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
