I rise on behalf of the Liberal caucus to pay tribute to National Skilled Trades and Technology Week. Skills Canada puts on this week every year, with the goal of promoting the great opportunities that careers in the skilled trades can bring. Skilled trades are important to the continued success of the Canadian economy and Skills Canada works to educate and to inform our youth about opportunities and careers that trades can provide.

I rise today on behalf of the Liberal caucus to recognize and to tribute Woman Abuse Prevention Month. The month of November is a time for us to reflect on our societal responsibilities. We need to ensure that our boys grow up to be caring men who understand that there is absolutely no situation where abuse is okay. As men, we have the responsibility to help ensure that the women in our lives have a safe environment. As legislators, we need to ensure that the resources are there for those who need them.

Today I rise on behalf of the Liberal caucus and all of my colleagues to pay tribute to Movember 2014. Movember’s core purpose is to change the face of men’s cancer. Movember is responsible for the sprouting of moustaches on thousands of men’s faces in Canada and across the world. This moustache-growing charity helps raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer, but also men’s mental health initiatives.

Mr. Silver:   I rise on behalf of the Yukon Liberal Party to also acknowledge A Safe Place.

Since last December, A Safe Place, a program run in conjunction with the Yukon Status of Women Council, Victoria Faulkner Women’s Centre and the Second Opinion Society, has been helping women and children with a warm meal and a roof over their heads. What had started as a pilot project had quickly grown into a necessity for the communities. A Safe Place provides a drop-in program, after-hours and on weekends where other services are not available, and it is targeted toward women who lack stable housing, have mental health issues, or are just having a hard time providing enough food for their children and for themselves.

I rise on behalf of the Liberal Party and the Official Opposition to also pay tribute to the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation and its ongoing leadership in working toward a UNESCO World Heritage designation for the Klondike.

A diverse community-based advisory committee was assembled for this project and is reflective of the significant economic opportunity that a UNESCO designation would present at a local and territorial level.

I would like to also rise today and I am going to rise on behalf of the Liberal caucus to pay tribute to Women’s History Month. Women have played a huge role in shaping the Yukon’s history — from First Nation women being matriarchal societies to Martha Black being a pioneer in more than one way during the Klondike Gold Rush in making history as the second female ever to be elected to the House of Commons and, more recently, Yukon’s first female Premier — Pat Duncan — who was only the second female Premier in Canada’s history to become the leader of a province or a territory in a general election.

Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the Legislative Assembly to congratulate the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation and the Yukon College on signing their memorandum of understanding for the teaching and working farm in Dawson.

This memorandum of understanding builds on already great partnerships that we have seen with the Yukon College and the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, which is producing great results like the one that we saw this spring with the graduates of the first class of the mobile trades training trailer program.

Today I rise on behalf of the Liberal caucus to also pay tribute to Mental Illness Awareness Week, which is an annual national public education campaign designed to help open the eyes of Canadians to the realities of mental illness. The week was established in 1992 by the Canadian Psychiatric Association and is now coordinated by the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health in cooperation with all of its members, organizations and other supporters across Canada.

I rise on behalf of the Yukon Liberal Party to pay tribute to Waste Reduction Week. Nationally, Waste Reduction Week is held in the third week of October each year. On Monday night, City Council declared that October 20 to 26 would be observed as Waste Reduction Week in Whitehorse.

Waste Reduction Week calls for all citizens, all Canadians, to adapt more environmentally conscientious choices in our everyday lives. The national Waste Reduction Week website provides resources to give people ideas to reduce waste in all facets of daily life. Reducing waste is one small solution every citizen can do to help with the many environmental challenges we face.

I rise on behalf of the Yukon Liberal Party to pay tribute to Poverty and Homelessness Action Week, which ran from October 16 to 22. Since 2005, this week has raised awareness for the plight of hunger and homelessness throughout community engagement activities.

As mentioned, this year’s theme was food security as a pertinent issue for us in the north. We all know our lifeline to the south may be very fragile. Food insecurity in the Yukon is a concern that affects us all. The need for programs to help fight food insecurity has steadily been rising in Whitehorse. According to the Whitehorse Food Bank’s monthly statistics, 585 households in our communities needed to use the food bank in September, and this is an increase of 11 percent from September of last year. Much of this need is attributed to the rising cost of living here in the Yukon.