Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the priorities of the 16th Assembly has been to develop healthy, educated people. When reading our 16th Assembly priorities, I noticed that seniors and elders are missed in our collective statement.
As leaders, we have made a commitment to our present and future generations. One of the ways I feel strongly that we can work towards achieving a goal of supporting our seniors is to develop and adopt an NWT seniors charter. In 2006, our very own House of Commons adopted a similar concept in recognizing seniors. As such, they adopted the Seniors Charter of Canada.
The NWT seniors charter, if adopted, could recognize older Northerners as creative, active, valued members of our society. It would serve as a mission statement and set out the government’s commitment to their well-being, equality, and certainly a standard of living.
An NWT seniors charter would speak to such areas as income security, housing, wellness and health care, our commitment to stopping elders’ abuse, accessible opportunities for recreation, education and training, and timely access to government services, to only name a few.
To highlight in comparison of simple fairness, the Minister responsible for official languages tables an annual report that looks at the state and progress of languages each year. I certainly support that. Why would the official state of our seniors’ care, if programming, progress and development not receive the same type of respect? If there was any area in Canada that talks about its respect, care and importance of seniors and elders, it’s certainly here in the Northwest Territories. That support seems to be lacking.
A seniors charter could be the compass rose of where we need to be and definitely where we want to go with seniors’ issues. It would, in essence, be our mission statement and our plan. We would not want to develop this on our own. We would certainly need the help and guidance of those we’ve committed to care for and those who have walked before us.
There are many examples out there as to what implementation models could look like, but certainly we’re not here to solve that today. What would be important today would be to take the first step forward in organizing our commitment to seniors by developing an NWT seniors charter which would definitely define and recognize the valued contributions they’ve made to our North and our commitment to stand behind them.
