Floyd Roland

I would like to recognize two individuals in the gallery. First, the president of the Gwich’in Tribal Council, Mr. Richard Nerysoo, as well as the president of the Northwest Territories Métis, Ms. Betty Villebrun.

Thank you. Instead of getting into, it’s a large volume of work and trying to respond in answer here, the Minister has got time with committee, will present the work that’s being done and start the dialogue in that fashion as we go forward. So I would say that that is the avenue that we should continue to honour and work with, otherwise I’ll give a little snippet here and cause concern to people out there without full information. So again, I would say let’s defer it to the meetings that have been set up and the full information will be provided to Members at that time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just to be clear, the Members were involved in the refocusing initiative, but then decided that they did not want to take part in that process. So we’ve gone back to our traditional way of doing things. As we collect the information we will present to standing committee, with a dialogue in committee to look at what initiatives go forward.

Specifically in the area of inclusive schooling, the program review office has been involved with that area, but none of the information has affected the development of this budget that’s in front of the Assembly today. The work that is...

Mr. Speaker, let the record show that we have worked with the leadership up and down the valley. In fact, we have from the NWT Metis, we have from the Tlicho, we have co-management boards set up for regime and accepted some harvest allocations. This is the one area that this issue has arisen and was raised at the Dene leadership. We continue to work with the leadership on a whole number of issues. The caribou will be one of them. Ultimately, I think when you talk to all of the leadership up and down the valley, it is the fact that we want to ensure that we have caribou herds for our future...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On the specific issue we are dealing with around caribou, we work with the aboriginal leadership across the Northwest Territories, depending on the specific herds and which aboriginal groups directly harvest from those herds and been involved in that. There is much to see in the discussions that have been held on some of the restrictions in place, working with co-management boards. I have not had direct discussions with Minister Strahl in this area. There are times when we will have opportunity to speak on a number of concerns. This, I am sure, will be one of those...

Mr. Speaker, the process we engaged in was more inclusive for sharing information. We contacted committee at their request to have involvement from the Regular Members on our Strategic Initiative committees, and this Refocusing Government committee did have Members involved in that process. Then subsequent to that, we were informed that they did not want to continue that process. So we have gone back to the more traditional way of doing it. Once we have got enough information to present that will help us in our decision-making process as we go forward. We would share that with standing...

Thank you. One of the things we do on a daily basis while we’re in session is talk about the issues that have arisen from question period and look at what is required to either get information or deal with the issue. This, the request for the type of information the Member has asked, is not going to be dealt with in a matter of days. It’s going to take some time to get all of that information. As well, the Member has raised there needs to be a comparison done to communities of similar size remote communities as to how we’ve delivered that service. We know, Mr. Speaker, the issue of health care...

Thank you. There definitely is opportunity. The Member himself has raised earlier in his line of questions the meetings that are held with the Beaufort-Delta leaders and the Gwich’in leaders around the services. The Department of Health and Social Services is in attendance along with representatives of the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority and we would work with that leadership to see what can be done. The area board authority is one that this government has tried to address through an initiative of board reform. That met with significant resistance of members in the public...

Thank you. I will speak to the Minister of Health and Social Services. With that request, of course that requires us to work with the authority in place as they would have that type of information when it comes to the dollars that are allocated, what was spent and how it was done, but I do know that the hours that the Member talked about was doctor visits in the community. There were, during the breakup seasons of the winter road and community visits by nurses, in the neighbourhood of almost 100 days of nurse time in the community. But I’ll get the appropriate information and see what we can...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I know the concern for the Member. It’s been raised, whether it is in this forum here in the Assembly or to provide services, necessary services in the community of Tsiigehtchic. Thank you.