Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Going through all the information that we’ve gotten for this department, there’s a lot of savings that have been made through this department. Just an example is the readiness for school. One of the positive things you can see out of that is this junior kindergarten, in my opinion. They’re addressing a lot of the needs in the small communities. You know how many times you hear, whether it’s Regular Members or Cabinet saying, we need to do things differently. We all know that a lot of the programs and services we provide in this territory aren’t really provided properly...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the years I have brought up the concern from the communities that there’s a lack of housing that’s needed. As we just passed the budget for this upcoming year, I’d like to ask the Minister of Housing, how many units are planned for the communities in the Mackenzie Delta?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to the motion here now, I will be supporting it, but I don’t see why we need to support the existing daycare facilities. I’m not sure if the mover of the motion would be able to amend this, but the real problem that I see is in the small communities… I know in a lot of the tax-based communities like Yellowknife, Inuvik and Hay River it’s not an issue when it comes to daycare because you have the numbers of children to fill those buildings, but in the small communities you’re constantly losing money when you’re running a daycare because you might have one or two...

That’s really good news, by the way. I’d also like to ask the Minister, I know when we do get new units, a lot of times they’re just replacements, so in the future, when are we going to get more units as add-ons?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to join my colleagues on Anti-Bullying Day today, the theme day. A lot of great practices by our territory today on anti-bullying. A lot of the schools are getting involved. For example, Fort McPherson yesterday celebrated this Anti-Bullying Day by showing their support for children who are being bullied. The reason they celebrated yesterday was because there is no school in the Mackenzie Delta for the next three days. So they were doing their part yesterday in their fight against bullying. I’d like to share my support with them and that is why I also...

As you know, in the Beaufort-Delta region there are almost 15 communities there so it doesn’t go a long way, but I think we need to relook at that. There are two different pots, actually, CHAP, as you mentioned and also, it is different under each land claim group, but it is the Gwich’in Harvester Assistance Program or the same under the Inuvialuit, but I think we do need to take a better look at that. There are more people wanting to go out and trap and hunt and make a partial living off of wild furs and hunting. It helps out a lot with the cost of living up in that area and I just wanted to...

Just on that note, you know, most of the people that live… I will just use Eight Miles for example, just south of Fort McPherson. Many of those people that live there are elders and a lot of them don’t sell a lot of the products they make, for example dry fish, even though there is a huge demand. A lot of people take their families out there and I think that would be eligible. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Were there any other contaminants found within the school premises? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I will continue my questions to the Minister of Public Works. Last week the Minister of Education mentioned that a major renovation was made to the Moose Kerr School in 1999. A number of upgrades were subsequently made to the school between 2008 and 2012.

I would like to know if any asbestos issues were encountered in any of these upgrades. Did these upgrades include abatement or mediation of asbestos-containing materials? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Itai Katz who is one of my constituents from Tsiigehtchic. I’d like to welcome him to the gallery. Thank you.