Frederick Blake Jr.

Many times we always hear that we don’t have funds, but when an emergency arises, all of a sudden, whether its $2 million, $10 million or $60 million it just seems to pop out of nowhere. I think it’s very important we set aside… You know, it’s not a large amount of money. Fifty to 100 thousand dollars is a small price to pay to have these communities up to speed and prepared. That’s the main thing that we have to be for this coming season. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a few questions for the Minister of Human Resources. I’d like to ask the Minister, what is the most current vacancy rate for GNWT jobs in the Mackenzie Delta including education and health authorities?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a few comments. This summer we had extreme fires here in the south, but in the coming summer I’m hoping to see more of our fire suppression crews in all the communities, especially in the Delta. We cut back over the last few years from Tsiigehtchic and other communities, Fort McPherson as well. I know we’ve really downsized over the last 10 years here. We used to have a lot of crews in many of the communities. I hope we do the same training as we usually did every spring and have people on hand and trained up in case of emergencies like we had this past summer.

Also...

On the overflow issue by Tsiigehtchic that we’re talking about, there’s also another thing we can do, but I know it’s all based on cost. The major lake that is the problem is Island Lake. There’s another place where a creek goes down to the Arctic Red River, which is about a mile west. All we needed to do is get the proper permits and get a backhoe in there and trench it out. As I mentioned last year, there’s a huge population of beaver in the areas throughout the Delta especially. That’s an issue. They clog up the creek. For that reason the water builds up and we have those issues along the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Within the last year the Gwich’in, the GNWT and Canada have all signed an agreement to build capacity within the communities. I’d like to ask the Minister for the status of that as of today and how many jobs are working towards being filled.

I’d like to ask the Minister, on average, how long have these jobs in the Delta gone unfilled and how does that compare to the NWT average?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It often takes a long time to fill vacant jobs in our government, especially in our smaller communities. The irony is that this is where jobs are needed the most and where unemployment is the highest. Even one job, even one new employee can make a real difference in a community as small as Tsiigehtchic, or even Fort McPherson.

I know one problem is matching local skills to the jobs available. I hear from Minister Lafferty that his department is improving education and training, and I really look forward to some of the good results.

The job vacancy statistics are a little...

Just on another note under the biomass, we have been working with the community of Fort McPherson quite a bit over the last couple of years and made a lot of progress. They are looking forward to building on that and possibly tie in other buildings within what system they have and also we can upgrade to maybe more systems. Is the department willing to work with the community? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I didn’t have a chance earlier to say how important this single window service is to the communities. I know some of the Members may have some in my ridings. Especially in the small communities, it really helps our elders and people that don’t know what kind of programs are available in our smaller communities.

I just want to thank the Minister and Cabinet for moving forward with this initiative. I know we did a pilot project, and seeing how successful it is and winning an award, I hope in years to come this continues. I look forward to hopefully one day have this as a...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a few opening comments as I did the other day. I’d just like to express large concern with the Dempster widening. Hopefully, that will happen this summer. I know it is under the Building Canada Fund, which we haven’t gotten to yet, but I’m looking forward to that and the council moving forward.

We have, as I mentioned a while back, the overflow concerns that are happening along the highway. In this day and age there’s technology that’s available that we could put in place that we would not have these minor problems, I mean the huge problems for some people...