David Krutko

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. Mr. Speaker, I believe that the Beavers foundation can help the Government of the Northwest Territories and our communities to ensure that we are able to deliver programs and services efficiently in all our communities by working with charitable organizations who can help with the challenge of community capacity development throughout the Northwest Territories.

With that, Mr. Speaker, at the appropriate time I will be asking the Premier questions on this matter. Thank you.

---Applause

There’s a motion on the floor to report progress. The motion is not debatable. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried

I’ll rise and report progress.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to speak in regards to a concern relating to capacity development in rural communities across the Northwest Territories. Mr. Speaker, the NWT has community empowerment policies in regards to finding solutions to deal with the critical problem of attracting the resources we need to run programs and services under the New Deal for communities.

Mr. Speaker, today out in the rural communities, they face many challenges when it comes to capacity development required for self-sufficiency in our communities. More and more responsibilities are being...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to get a commitment from the Minister today to consider going into the community of Tsiigehtchic with myself and talk about the policing problem that we have. I know a letter has been sent to the Minister and I would just like to ask the Minister at this time for his commitment and also if he has any dates that we can look at.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister has stated there is a plan in place to look at communities that do not have policing. I would just like to ask the Minister who is overseeing that plan and what is the process to allow communities that don’t have policing to be involved in that dialogue or discussion so they can have input in finding a solution.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I’d like to ask the Minister if she can also ensure that the resource people who are responsible for health care delivery in the Inuvik region are present at this meeting so they can respond to the community by way of a community meeting so that the resource people are present along with the Minister. But if I can ask the Minister, could she give me a more general date and time, like the first week in January, so we can sort of nail it down so I can forward it to the community and the chief of Tsiigehtchic? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the perfect solution will be to have a permanent nurse in the community, but right now that’s just a dream. So I’d like to ask the Minister exactly what are we doing as the Department of Health and Social Services to ensure that communities that don’t have nursing in place do have a response system to deal with emergencies in their community?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would also like to include the different municipal organizations and the NWT Association of Municipalities in this, because we are having some crisis situations in our communities; policing, nursing. Those things aren’t being delivered in our communities and I think it’s critical that we have these positions filled. So I look forward to working with the Premier, but also including other organizations, agencies. I, again, would like to thank the Premier for moving on this. Thank you.

I would like to ask the Premier to look at this with a broad brush to look at all areas throughout the Government of the Northwest Territories. The programs and services are not being delivered in our communities because they have not been able to attract those people to fill those positions.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are to the Premier in regards to my Member’s statement in finding new ways of dealing with capacity crisis we have in a lot of our communities. Mr. Speaker, we have a situation throughout the Northwest Territories of attracting professions to fill a lot of positions in communities throughout the Northwest Territories, but it is becoming more and more difficult for us to be able to find people in the different professional fields that we are looking at, from mental health to education to community capacity, by way of SAOs and financial...