David Krutko

Thank you Mr. Speaker. I would like to table a document that was presented at the public meeting in Aklavik. It is: What can we do to as a collective - ideas for the Joe Greenland Centre. More importantly, Joe Greenland elders daycare improvement and quality of life for seniors.

Again in the budget we talk about sustainable communities. Every job we lose in our community makes that community unsustainable. It depends on capacity in the community, vibrant people working new jobs, dollars staying in our communities, and also ensuring that we have the capacity in those communities. So if we’re going to be laying off people in Joe Greenland who have LNs that basically have the education and training and those people who have been there for some time, I mean, this facility has been functioning for 32 years. There are a lot of people who are working there. I’d like to know...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to say a few things on the budget. One of the issues that we talk about is to try to encourage employment and job opportunities in the Northwest Territories. What really frustrates me is I have 14 people in my riding of Aklavik and there are some 20 people being laid off from the Arctic Tern facility in Inuvik which gives us something like 38 people being laid off in the Inuvik region. I, for one, feel that we’re spending $1.4 million to promote awareness in southern Canada for jobs and life opportunities in the North. If those individuals in Aklavik...

Mr. Speaker, again, the individual that I speak of is 90 years old. He’s visually impaired. He’s already in a controlled setting in regard to the Joe Greenland Centre. He has 24-hour support. I’d like to ask the Minister exactly what are we doing to work with the families so that when the individuals transition out of the Joe Greenland, that their needs will be met in regard to their disability or the respite responsibility or palliative care, whatever will be required to ensure that those individuals have the care that they need to be able to live either independently or basically have the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In regard to my Member’s statement, it has come to my attention that there has been a letter sent to two elderly individuals who are in the Joe Greenland Centre receiving long-term care support. Mr. Speaker, I’d just like to read a sentence out of the letter. It says, “The staff will help you transition to your family’s home on or before February 16, 2011, by 5:00 p.m.” So they’ve got to be out of there exactly at 5:00 p.m., February 16th.

Mr. Speaker, we had a public meeting in Aklavik on January 25th, with the Minister of Health, the Minister of Housing and also the...

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Next on my list I have Mr. Ramsay.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted

Is the committee agreed?

Mr. Speaker, your committee would like to report progress. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Premier if he would refer this question to the Minister of Justice and have the Department of Justice look at the constitutional viability of this agreement and the affect it has on Aboriginal treaty rights in the Northwest Territories.