Bob McLeod

As we committed to, this will be part of the review. I have offered each of the MLAs some of our senior management to meet individually with each of the MLAs so that we can hear more details about the concerns. We will be working with the DECs in every region and we have said that for those communities that want to opt out right away, we will accommodate them. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this motion. I just have a few comments to make. I guess some of the points that were made against priority hiring, that’s a policy of this government where government has significant changes. We change organizations on a regular basis. To hear that some Members will stand up loudly against priority hiring concerns me.

We have priority hiring to protect the employees of the government. If we don’t have priority hiring, it means that if we change our organization, it means that we will have to lay these people off, and that’s a...

We are always watching out for the best interests of our children. We take these concerns, complaints, very seriously and we will be looking into them on an immediate basis. It would be helpful if the Member could share some of his very specific concerns with us. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe that as part of their review we will be meeting with the Aboriginal Head Start people to determine how best to move forward. At the request of the Members, we will be approaching each of the communities. My expectation is that those 10 communities that have Aboriginal Head Start, even though they are federal programs and federal money that is slated to expire in 2016, that for those communities that have Head Start and don’t want a junior kindergarten, we will accommodate them. Thank you.

As I explained to committee and as the Member will be very pleased to know, all of the members of the Intergovernmental Council are very committed to transparency and all of the intergovernmental leaders have agreed to make meeting outcomes available, and leaders also recognize the need to be open and transparent and available and open to the press, their constituents and their fellow leaders within their governments. As I offered, there are ways around this observer thing. All of the governments have agreed to limit their participation to three members at the council. As I suggested in the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I did bring forward a request from the MLAs to the Intergovernmental Council. I think it’s important to recognize that the Intergovernmental Council is intended to foster improved cooperation and collaboration on land and resource management issues, and each government will continue to represent its own interests and the independent jurisdictions of each government are untouched. So, ultimately, the accountabilities of each government must remain. So on this Intergovernmental Council there’s the Government of the Northwest Territories and at least seven Aboriginal...

As the Member indicates, the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement is administered by the federal government and, as I understand it, a component of this agreement relates to personal credits that individuals may be eligible to put towards educational, cultural projects, skills development or other related purposes. I think that we would want to see that information available to survivors, and the concern that has been raised by former eligible students that have not had adequate opportunity to apply to this program, so I would be pleased to include that in the request.

As a government, we just rolled out a number of policies. We came out with an Anti-Poverty Strategy where we provided $500,000 to address this. We are spending money on housing. We’re going to spend $21 million on housing over the next three years, and we continue to provide support in all of the 33 communities in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the last time I checked, this government spends about 70 percent of our budget on social programs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Member wants to focus on Yellowknife, but all schools will see the re-profiling of existing funding. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.