Statements in Debates
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have had some discussions between myself and the deputy about The Globe and Mail article and the very disturbing findings in there. I was really happy to hear the work that Justice is doing with the RCMP to attempt to change some of those results for the better.
In the Department of Health and Social Services, we are focusing on a couple of different areas. One of them is prevention. We are utilizing programs like what will it take to get out there and work with residents across the territories to change the perspective, change the attitudes around...
There are five pillars that were utilized to help us address poverty in the Northwest Territories, and this is being used by our stakeholders as well, and that's the Children and Family Support, Healthy Living and Reaching our Potential, Safe Affordable Housing, Sustainable Communities and Integrated Continuum of Services. In this budget that is before us today, we are investing $750,000, new dollars, to provide services for homeless people in Yellowknife. There has been a commitment to fully fund junior kindergarten. There's $3 million to enhance small community employment support, which is...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think it was about two weeks ago I had an opportunity to attend the federal-provincial-territorial meeting with the Minister that the Member opposite is referring to, and we did have an opportunity to discuss the work that the federal government is doing on a federal anti-poverty initiative. They're currently out doing a number of stakeholder engagements across the country.
At that meeting, we had an opportunity to talk about what's happening in every jurisdiction, and I clearly outlined the work that's been done around anti-poverty work here in the...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Once again, I didn't say no to the Member's request, but we do have to look at the work that is being done in the Government of the Northwest Territories, and I think there is a lot of information out there already about the significant negative impacts that this issue is having on residents of the Northwest Territories. I would much rather invest in more prevention than doing another survey, but if it is the wish of committee, if committee tells me that that is something they want to see, investment in surveys instead of actions, I am prepared to take their direction...
The Member raises a solid point, and it is a good point. What Will It Take does have significant value. There is no evaluation framework, and that is something that I have committed to working on so that we can see what kind of benefits we are getting over time. We know that social marketing does and can play a key role in challenging people's perceptions, or bringing greater public attention. I take the Member's point, and I think the point the Member is raising is something we might be able to build into one of our future rants that we are sitting out there to get that information out. I...
Mr. Speaker, we have a number of different committees in Cabinet that we get together to work together as Ministers to help break down silos. Our deputies also work on similar committees to break down silos within the Government of the Northwest Territories. I'm continually raising the issue of poverty, as it is one of the areas I'm responsible for, and trying to find ways to work together to offer our residents more options to help lift them from poverty as opposed to just providing handouts, and we're working to that end, Mr. Speaker. We appreciate the Member's commitment to increasing and...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories has made a commitment in its mandate to work collaboratively to reduce poverty in the Northwest Territories by working with our partners to advance the Territorial Anti-Poverty Action Plan, funding community-based partners, supporting community priorities for wellness, and developing additional options for action.
Poverty is a complex issue and there is no single solution. The lack of a commonly accepted, shared definition on poverty makes it difficult to have a focused discussion among stakeholders. Because...
Just before I go to that question, I would just like to point out that, in the Northwest Territories, following up on the honourable Member for Yellowknife North, we are looking to put in a sobering centre here in Yellowknife, which I know is not a treatment centre, but it is certainly a step in the right direction to providing a local facilitybased type support to those individuals that are struggling.
The Member is right. We have facilitybased treatment programs that are available that can tend to be very clinical. Poundmaker's is really fantastic in the fact that it provides a lot of...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to correct the honourable Member just a little bit. There are a multiple number of programs available to residents in the Northwest Territories. We have community counsellors throughout the Northwest Territories, we've been running on-the-land programs across the Northwest Territories with our Aboriginal partners. We have piloted and we're looking to do more pilots of a mobile treatment option, which is a treatment-type program that can move from region to region rather than relying strictly on a particular facility. We travelled throughout the...
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I am happy to go back and go through each of those lines, but this is a consolidation page of all the other pages that we've gone through, and when we were discussing the other pages many of the Members asked questions of why did this go up or why did this go down and we answered a number of those questions at that time. So to answer that question, we'd probably have to go back through the departments because every division, every section, is having some increases and decreases as a result of forced growth, new initiatives, and those types of things. This is...