Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to follow up on my Member’s statement. In our main estimates it shows that there has been an increase to the forced growth for two not-for-profit organizations. I’d like to commend the Premier for taking that initiative to get our organizations, that do excellent work on behalf of government, and getting their wages and benefits up to par with what we pay our government employees. So my first question is to the Premier.

When we’re going through an exercise like this, who initiates that process? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to acknowledge the department for the two programs that they’re putting into place here, the Integrated Case Management Pilot Project and seeing that the department is taking the initiative to get our departments to work together, rather than in silos, to integrate our people back into society and become, hopefully, stand-up citizens so they get jobs and work, and Mr. Yakeleya was making some references to that earlier. It’s better late than never. Coming to the game with that now, I think we are going to start seeing some improvements in how our people that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just making a recommendation to the Premier, would the Premier, in the framework, make it mandatory that forced growth with all our non-profit organizations be reviewed or even the framework be reviewed every four years or every time there’s a GNWT negotiating the Collective Agreement for our GNWT employees and do the same for our not-for-profit sector? The ones that we fund.

So, moving forward just in terms of awareness and an education component, hopefully some of our non-profit organizations that we do fund are listening and can take that same process, but sometimes those organizations don’t want to come knocking at the door.

Would the Premier make a recommendation to his Cabinet Ministers to go and talk to their non-profit organizations and see if they do in fact need an increase in their funding for salaries and wages and benefits to keep up to par? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On November 18th I attended the budget dialogue in Inuvik where various concerns and recommendations were brought to the government in the Minister of Finance’s budget dialogue tour across the Northwest Territories. There was a big discussion around investment in renewable energy, and obviously Inuvik is going through a gas situation, and that was one of the big topics, and I’m glad to see that it was also reiterated in other regions with the high cost of living and energy that was put into the Taking Stock Budget Dialogue.

This government is working on, right now...

Thank you, Madam Chair. More just comments. No particular questions for the Housing Corp here. Just over the course, this is the fourth time we’ve sat down with the department in terms of our operational budgets. I remember at the onset of the 17th Legislative Assembly and the Auditor General’s report that came out that had some pretty scathing results that I think committee of the day was just raring to go with this Housing Corp in terms of looking at getting to the work.

Even before they came to committee they started taking the necessary approaches to make the changes that would affect that...

Can I ask the Premier, when was the framework developed and what year did it come into effect and, in fact, if that framework will be reviewed? Thank you.

Just more of kind of like an education awareness little dialogue here. It’s good to know, because we do, as Members, get approached by a lot of NGOs about core funding, about operations, about salaries, things of that nature. So in terms of how it’s being developed, I know looking at the avenues moving forward. Just more of a comment and I’m glad to see that this department has increased the forced growth for these two organizations, because as NGOs it is pretty tough to do business out there sometimes. I’m glad to see that this department has taken that initiative and worked with these two...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a couple of comments. First of all, the contribution of dollars going into the Indspire Awards. I think it’s a very beneficial program and one way that this government supports non-government organizations that recognizes our Aboriginal Northerners that are doing great work in the North and even across the country. We have had some Northerners that were recognized under this program.

Also, I just want to acknowledge the ongoing support for the Women’s Advisory, which we just witnessed here last week with the Campaign School. I think that was something that this...

Will those recommendations in a report come before standing committee so that the department and these several working groups that we have throughout the Northwest Territories are held accountable for the work that they do? It seems like there are a lot of working groups out there trying to do the same thing and I think Members sitting at this table have given some good recommendations already.