Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Without going too much into specifics, it's a very diverse approach. First, we need more of our residents getting into those careers as teachers, mental health practitioners, counselling, so our people at risk are seeing people they know, or at least come from a similar backgroun

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Absolutely. You've hit the nail on the head. We have to celebrate. There are individuals in our society, and the first one who comes to mind is...we do want to focus on the everyday people, but we do have leaders. Jordin Tootoo is an example. He's led a number of suicide preven

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We have, to a degree. I wasn't familiar with the waiting period. I hope that's not the case. I was with Minister Philpott when that announcement was made in Kuujjuaq on the $9 million. We've been working on putting proposals together. I know there have been some back and forth c

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'm probably the worst person to respond to this, Michael. I lost my language as a child, but I think that gives me a higher focus on how important it really is. There are a number of different words in the Inuit language that you just can't translate into English. Working with t

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Health has a number of different programs with a smoking cessation program. We have a number of different campaigns on smoking cessation, specifically, where we have posters of residents that people know.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We have a promotion of life campaign that's ongoing. A lot of it is still being developed, even as we speak. With this specific focus on suicide prevention, out of my office, there's a number of different initiatives, such as injury prevention and not hurting yourself, and promot

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I agree with everything you said, Michael. One of the things is that I think you'd be very hard-pressed to find somebody in Nunavut, NWT, Labrador, or Nunavik who hasn't been touched by this issue of suicide. When we're talking about some of the things that have been working or

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'll let Karen enhance it a little afterwards, but in general, yes, to a degree. We are looking at social inequities, which Mr. Obed brought up in his appearance, and I reiterate that. When we're talking about people living at or below the poverty level, food security is obviousl

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's our office. Right now, we're working on our action plan. There are a number of different indicators we want to have an impact on, but we need assistance. We need partnerships. The federal government is one of those partners. The RCMP has been a great resource, NTI , and

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That was one of the things we did as a jurisdiction, and it is a very new concept across the country. I am the minister responsible for suicide prevention. Karen reports directly to me, so it has that direction and responsibility from the very top, from a cabinet level, which I t

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We wouldn't be able to build that many units in a short term, but again it is a question of stabilization of funding. The latest numbers I have show that we're more than 3,000 units short across the territory. That may not sound like a lot to some people from larger jurisdictions

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's a very long discussion. Housing has a very diverse impact; you're talking about health, education, and mental health. The opportunity for violence in a household when you're living in overcrowded scenarios, I would say is at least 50%. It would alleviate some of the pressu

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Absolutely. One of our main goals out of this exercise is to reinforce the belief that, given some stable funding with some flexibility to it.... Again, as things adjust, as things adapt, we need some fluidity within the parameters of the programming so that we can adjust as we r

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That is one of the challenges with the funding that we do have and that we are able to provide at the community level. It is more the community initiatives that are developing the programs. We are trying not to be Big Brother. We want the communities to develop their own programm

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I am going to let Karen respond to that one, if you don't mind, Mr. Chair.