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.
