Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are a number of very important visitors that I want to recognize. From the Tlicho: Grand Chief Eddie Erasmus and his wife, Frances Erasmus; Chief Clifford Daniels; Bertha Rabesca-Zoe, legal counsel with the Tlicho; former chief, Leon Lafferty. From the Gwich’in: vice-president Norman Snowshoe and Jozef Carnogursky. From the Akaitcho: Chief Edward Sangris, Roy Erasmus, former chief Peter Liske. Also, I want to recognize former Lapointe Hall student Sam Gargan. From the Northwest Territories Chamber of Commerce: president Kathy Gray and executive director Mike...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you, Members, for your comments here today. It is clear that each of us cares deeply about the future of this territory.

We have a chance to make history here. For all my life, critical decisions about what happens in this territory have been made by the federal government. When I was born in Fort Providence, the Territorial Council, the forerunner to this Legislative Assembly, was still based in Ottawa, and included five appointed Members and only three elected representatives.

Times have changed. There are 19 of us now, responsible for our own budget of...

WHEREAS the transfer of responsibility from Canada to the Government of the Northwest Territories for public lands and resources, including rights in respect of water, has been an objective of this Legislative Assembly;

AND WHEREAS negotiations among the Government of Canada, the Government of the Northwest Territories, the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, the Northwest Territory Metis Nation, the Sahtu Secretariat Inc., the Gwich’in Tribal Council and the Tlicho Government have resulted in a proposed Northwest Territories Lands and Resources Devolution Agreement;

AND WHEREAS residents of the...

We have a committee made up of a combination of Cabinet Ministers and MLAs. We have three Cabinet Ministers and five MLAs on the Committee on Sustainability of Rural and Remote Communities. The terms of reference provide that it would provide advice to Cabinet.

The way I would see it is that this committee, we would have to work it so that it can tie into the budget process so that their recommendations can be provided on a timely basis, in time that they could be considered when we do capital planning and our main estimates.

I think that request seems very simplistic, and if you multiply that a thousand-fold, we still wouldn’t have enough money. I think we have to be focused.

I also talked about the third-party accountability framework. The NGO Stabilization Fund is just a top-up. There are three categories of NGO funding that are provided for by all departments. That’s what the framework is for, is to categorize the level of reporting for the funding that is received by NGOs. Not all NGOs provide essential services to the Government of the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The changes that we made were we clarified who was eligible to apply. We were getting all kinds of applications from organizations and groups that were applying that didn’t provide any services to the Government of the Northwest Territories. We also tightened up the program so that we could get the request for applications out soon and that we would process the applications on a timely basis and flow the money out promptly.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We would like to fund all of the requests, but we have a finite level of resources and we are going to the main estimates process. We will also be rolling out a number of strategies that pertain to social programs, such as the Early Childhood Development Framework, the Northwest Territories Anti-Poverty Strategy, the Minister’s Forum on Addictions and Mental Health recommendations, Economic Opportunities Strategy, Mineral Development Strategy, the Land Use and Sustainability Framework. So we’ll be rolling out all of those frameworks as well.

So I can commit to the Member...

It sounds like the Member is focusing only on the NGO Stabilization Fund when the NGO Stabilization Fund is just a fund to top up funding to NGOs that provide essential services for the Government of the Northwest Territories.

We have a third-party accountability framework, which is called Excellence Through Partnerships, and I think that is more appropriate to the line of questioning that you are taking. We have three categories of NGOs and I am sure that when we review it, if we get more specifics as to how or why you think land claims organizations should be funded by this government as an...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct; we reviewed the NGO Stabilization Fund to clarify which types of NGOs were eligible to apply and also to respond faster, to process the applications faster and flow the money out on a much faster basis. We were able to do that. This year we have had 14 applications. Thank you.

Obviously, we want communities in the rural and small communities to have a similar quality of life to other communities in the Northwest Territories. I’ve always said that one shouldn’t be penalized because of where they live, so we would endeavour to try to work in that regard.