Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the goals of this Assembly is healthy, educated people. Preventing rather than treating illness and disease is the real key to achieving that goal. Encouraging our residents to make healthy choices is one of the most important things the Government of the Northwest Territories can do to help.

Through the Healthy Choices Framework, several GNWT departments have been successfully working together to make it easier for our residents to make better choices in their daily lives. Healthy Choices is our approach to encouraging and supporting NWT residents to make healthy and safe choices, and has been supported as part of our Building Our Future Strategic Initiative.

Since the framework was originally developed in 2005, it has expanded from themes such as supporting healthy eating, physical activity, living tobacco free, and not abusing alcohol and drugs, to include important work around injury prevention, healthy sexuality, mental wellness, and healthy children and families.

Across these themes the departmental involvement ranges depending on the message. Education, Culture and Employment is involved as a key channel in helping young people and families understand the importance of good choices. Every day staff in our Justice department see the important link between social issues and crime prevention. Transportation has an interest in injury prevention around transportation-related safety.

Municipal and Community Affairs and Health and Social Services have shared the lead in this cross-departmental work. Municipal and Community Affairs has a great stake in this work because of their role in working with communities to promote recreation, active living and quality of life. Health and Social Services has an overall mandate to promote, protect and provide for the health and well-being of NWT residents. If we can move to a future where NWT residents make healthy choices, a great deal of stress on our health and social services systems could be avoided.

To date, the Healthy Choices Framework has been able to engage in a range of positive activities available to all regions and communities in the Northwest Territories. Many were on display today in the Great Hall. Programs such as Get Active, Drop the Pop, and Butthead bring together schools, communities and health professionals to ensure messages are clear, consistent, and well promoted.

However, there is still a great deal of work to be done. We need to expand our partnership and continue to improve our collaboration at the community level. Promotion of healthy choices is a role that all of us share, from parents and friends, to communities, to the leaders in this room. Beyond educating people, we need to advocate and support our communities to ensure that healthy choices are available.

We also need to continue to promote our specific themes. Changing behaviours is one of the most difficult things to do, but it is vital to the future of the North.

We have to start treating ourselves better, from engaging in healthier relationships to using recreation and traditional activities as an outlet to help feel better about ourselves. We need to teach our children to respect themselves, and go back to having a culture that thinks about prevention and safety.

The Healthy Choices Framework is evaluating the shared work to date, and preparing to renew a framework in the coming fall will guide our activities during the 17th Assembly.

As I introduced earlier today in the Great Hall, our new brand will help the Government of the Northwest Territories to promote healthy choices consistently. I would like to thank the GNWT staff and partners present today who are committed to this important work.

Speaker: MR. SPEAKER

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Minister responsible for the Workers' Safety and Compensation Commission, Mr. Robert McLeod.