Caroline Cochrane

I am a bit confused with the question being asked, but I can say that, in the Sahtu area, all the communities except for Colville Lake have actually applied and received confirmation of their funding, and we are working closely with Colville Lake within the Sahtu to actually submit their application, as well.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to formally recognize Ms. Sharon Firth in the visitors' gallery today. Ms. Firth, a fourtime Olympian and Order of Canada recipient, was recently named a Canada 150 Ambassador by the Minister of Canadian Heritage, the Honourable Melanie Joly. Canada 150 Ambassadors are being asked to connect with Canadians all across the country and contribute to creating positive legacies for years to come and make 2017, the year of the 150th anniversary of confederation, a defining year for all Canadians. Thank you, Sharon. We look forward to your contributions to this important...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Personally, I do not believe in drinking bottled water. I think that we have excellent-quality water in the Northwest Territories. As MACA, my job is to promote community governments. I work with them in building and monitoring their water treatment plants. I am not responsible for all of the government buildings, though, so I will voice my opinions but I cannot make authorization on someone else's department. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

So although I recognize that volunteers are really critical, really important, very valuable in our communities, they often don't do that for recognition. However, it is important to recognize our volunteers, and so we do a number of things to promote volunteerism.

We have a Volunteer Organization Development Contribution program that gives training support funding. We have a Volunteer Recognition Program, that we have $30,000 that we provide funding for community governments to run volunteer recognition events. They can apply up to $1,000 per event. That program is still taking applications...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, through the 2016 nomination period, actually 23 nominations in total were received for the four awards: 10 were from elders; 11 were individuals; one group applicant; and one youth. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'm just a bit thirsty; I'd like to take a drink of water.

---Laughter

The Speaker, I notice, as well. Yes, as the Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, we do work closely with all of the community governments, like we say, in developing their water treatment plants and monitoring them as well. I will put forward to promote the residents in their communities to actually use drinking water from the taps as well, and I would join the honourable MLA Green in challenging all MLAs to go on the Ecology North website and join the campaign.

I will bring the issue up to Cabinet and bring it to their attention. I can do that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have gone through on my last answer a number of areas where we promote volunteers and where we support organizations with doing that. Any organization that is interested in either accessing more volunteers or training their volunteers, we are willing to work with them individually, as well.

This topic of increasing volunteerism is not new to the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs. We have been realizing that the numbers of volunteers have been going down over the years. There may be a variety of reasons for that, including the need for twoparent families to be working now.

We are actually doing a number of things. We are looking at increasing our advertising to get more nominations out there. We are also going to be putting it forward to the stakeholders, the five regional stakeholders that we will be meeting with, because I am guessing that they are also realizing that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize a constituent in my riding, someone who I consider a close friend, and more important, a woman who is really interested in preserving her culture by writing children's books. She just came out with her first one, called Wild Eggs. Suzie Napayok-Short is our translator today. I am honoured to have her here. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.