Alfred Moses

Thank you. As I mentioned in my previous question, the budget that this organization is already working with is already over budget with the initial start-up costs, and although we are going to continue to have this money allocated on a yearly basis, there are still some costs that need to be covered to ensure that the service is provided only during the winter months, but the heating costs in Inuvik, as we all know with the Inuvik gas situation, are pretty high. So, I was wanting to get a commitment on whether or not we will see extra funding going into this with this project moving forward...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a follow up to my Member’s statement and I have questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. With the emergency wet shelter happening in Inuvik and some of the research that’s been done in Alaska such as in Nome and Juno, how is the Minister staying on top of this pilot project that has already shown some great success in just over the two months in terms of services being provided as well as a number of residents and a number of things happening in the community such as less call-outs and disturbances, those kinds of things? How is the Minister...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to welcome everybody back into the House as well as welcome any NWT residents who may be viewing, especially through our new satellite option.

In our past O and M budget process, committee worked with government on committing funding for mental health prevention and promotion programs through the Department of Health and Social Services. Some of these funds were provided to the communities of Yellowknife and Inuvik and were to be allocated for day shelters.

In the community of Inuvik, however, the health authority had a meeting and worked with the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I mentioned how this can be the layout or the blueprint to lay out the framework for future shelters throughout the Northwest Territories and not just Inuvik.

We’ve said in this House time and time again, I guess you could say we’ve criticized the government and the Department of Health with regard to a lack of programs and services in areas of mental health and addictions, specifically detox facilities. That is something we really tried to get to the point here. This project itself serves a great purpose in terms of detox under a supervised setting and also doesn’t exhaust resources of the RCMP or the medical staff at the hospital.

With such a great project in place where people can go if they are intoxicated – a wet shelter – and be supervised...

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Joining us today is my constituency assistant, Weronica Murray from Inuvik. She’s going to be here for the first week understanding our consensus government style and participating in some of the work. Welcome, Weronica.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seconded the motion on the hard work of Mr. Dolynny and all the research he’s done into this and taking the initiative to do the ride-alongs in the city of Yellowknife. We do have a growing concern in my community of Inuvik as well. It started out with the Town of Inuvik making this public, the town council actually, and going to the paper to discuss some of the issues around open alcohol in the downtown core of Inuvik on Mackenzie Road.

On my last trip home, I had a talk with the RCMP and how they’ve changed their policies so they won’t have to deal with anybody who...

The NWT Film Commission falls under the Industry, Tourism and Investment portfolio of the department. Would it be in the best interest to allow a little bit more flexibility that if, possibly like the NWT Tourism, this commission becomes independent of the government so that they can run on their own timelines but also access funding from the government? Has the Minister had any discussions on that with his colleagues, in terms of possibly looking at that as a stepping away from the government?

Thank you. Currently the Yukon government and the Nunavut government offer rebates. Why can’t the NWT come up with a policy of their own that offers rebates to some of these production companies? We have a very great group of individuals in the Northwest Territories looking at development and training.

Does the Minister see any type of funding to go into development and training for some of our individuals that are in the industry? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier this week I did a Member’s statement on the legacy of Members in this House who have served for this government. Today I’m going to talk about a different legacy: building a legacy in our youth, in our communities and in our future leaders.

Today I want to talk about the Northern Youth Abroad Program. The Northern Youth Abroad Program specifically is designed to meet the unique needs of youth living in isolated communities in Canada’s North, specifically the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. This program was initially designed to help find Nunavut teachers to...