Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to take the opportunity to welcome the president of the Gwich’in Tribal Council, Mr. Robert Alexie Jr., as well as the chief operating officer, Mr. Fred Koe. Welcome, enjoy the proceedings. I’d also like to make a special welcome to Gayla Meredith, the president of the NWTTA. It is Education Week and I hope the campaign and everything is going great this week.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just before I continue on, I guess I’ll take a couple different focuses here.

In terms of Health and Social Services, I know it is our biggest budget that does pose a lot of challenges that I’ve seen being in the health and social services field for many years. We have to continue to try to combat these challenges at the same time as trying to find ways we can invest in projects, programs and services that will cut down the costs and care and treatment that we so easily look at funding rather than looking at areas where we can start doing the prevention, promotion...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Justice. I want to commend him and the work that his community have been doing in terms of making all of these drug busts and bootlegging busts in the communities; actually, more involved with the Not Us! campaign and empowering our residents to speak up in the communities and get justice where it needs to be. I commend the hard work that the department is doing with this program. Specifically to the Not Us! program, I believe it is probably in its third year now of running.

I just want to ask the Minister, with the success of...

Would the Minister be willing to look at the dollars that were allocated and rather than just the O and M costs, be looking at providing more funding, specifically over the winter months when these guys are accessing the day shelter so they are able to spend the days in the day shelter, so they can keep their doors open. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the efforts of committee and the work that we have been doing going through the budget dialogue process and looking at putting dollars where we feel that has not been looked at or supported in quite a number of years. I think, for the past six years NWT Tourism has been operating on the same budget and doing a really great job in terms of getting out to the markets and other jurisdictions, while at the same time still operating on the second-lowest budget in all of Canada. Even with this little increase that we’re asking for, we appreciate the $600,000 that...

Would the Minister commit to creating a ministerial directive in speaking with the RCMP to make it a priority, and make it mandatory for RCMP to be in the schools and educate the students on what their roles are in the community and in the schools, and create that strong partnership so that our students can speak up, our teachers can speak up, and let RCMP know what some of their concerns are in terms of bullying, violence, and other things that are happening in the school system or on school grounds?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Being one of the volunteers that helped start up the Not Us! campaign in Inuvik and get the funding for it, I know how successful this program can be in empowering our residents, our students, our teachers, everybody that works with children and works in the community. Specifically, there is a very successful program called the Lights On Program that happens that we do in Inuvik but we don’t have the funding to keep it on or provide a safe environment for students in the school.

Would the Minister look at specific funding for the Lights On Program outside of the Not Us...

Mr. Speaker, I was going to ask how many communities are receiving funding and the Minister answered that. We have 13 other communities that can potentially have alcohol and drug-related problems. I want to know – and the Minister did state that he has enough funding to cover the communities that we have now – what about these 13 communities that continue to have these issues. How is he going to address those issues if he’s not committing any other funding?

Can the Minister let me know, and let the government know, and people in these other 13 communities, how is he going to address empowering...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That will be a tough act to follow there. I, too, would like to stand before the House and recognize and appreciate all the work that’s been going on in the education area, specifically to the Department of Education on their new renewal strategy. We have some new staff in there that’s doing some really good work and I think we’ll see some good improvements in the rest of this Assembly as we move forward in the education system and deal with some of our challenges.

Specifically, I would like to thank all the hardworking staff at the Beaufort-Delta Education Authority as...

Just moving further, Mr. Chair, at the Beaufort-Delta Regional Council meeting that was held in January, I know the leadership approved and supported moving forward with a women’s shelter in Tuktoyaktuk. I believe the building they have now was constructed in the 1960s and requires a lot of renovations and upgrades on a consistent basis. They are looking at getting new infrastructure for the women’s shelter. I just want to ask the Minister if he has that on the books and if it was something the Housing Corporation was looking into in the foreseeable future or near future. Thank you, Mr. Chair.