Jackson Lafferty

Mr. Speaker, we do provide services to the communities. If we have an income support worker, client service officer in a community, they provide the service. If they’re not there, that means we don’t provide services. So we do provide services in all communities, Mr. Speaker. Client services officers are established in the communities. If they’re not established in the community, they travel to the communities. There is a regular scheduled visit by income security officers, client service officers. So certainly those are the areas that we continue to improve on.

There’s also a review on the way...

First of all we need to find out what’s really happening, why they are in the situation they are and how we can assist them. We do have programs that can certainly assist them and, yes, I’m more than willing to work with both departments, the NWT Housing Corporation and the Minister of Health and also Persons with Disabilities. If we need to improve in those areas, I am more than willing to look at it. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, certainly we do what we can to prevent these things from happening. Surely, if we need to improve in our communication dialogue, we’re more than willing to do that between the departments. So those are the areas of improvement that we can certainly discuss at the departmental level. Mahsi.

Through education awareness within the schools or the child care development programs, the facilities, we do have various qualified caregivers. Not only that, we do have coordinators at the community level and even at the regional level that can surely share that type of information. Whether it be pertaining to children under the age of two or over the age of two, there are all kinds of programming that is out there.

So that information is shared broadly throughout the Northwest Territories. So we continue to depend on our workers at that level, at the community and regional level. Mahsi, Mr...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Range Lake, that Bill 7, An Act to Amend the Summary Conviction Procedures Act, be read for the second time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill amends the Summary Conviction Procedures Act to provide that a justice may enter a conviction and impose the specified penalty where a person who has been summonsed to appear before the justice by way of ticket fails to either pay the specified penalty or to appear as summonsed.

The maximum fine for failing to appear before a justice as required is increased, and formalities relating to information...

Mr. Speaker, I think that is one of our goals, whether it be a pilot project or we’ve increased some client service officers in the small communities just over the last couple of years. So we continue to improve our programs. Based on a pilot project, most likely we can look at that and see where we can go with it. If it’s required, then it has to go through the business planning process again. But definitely those are the areas that we can certainly look at in the Member’s riding and in other ridings as well. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. To deal with the clientele of income support service, we do have client service officers in the communities; maybe not all communities, but those communities without client service officers we do have on-duty individuals that travel from the region. As the Member indicated, there are client service officers that travel to the communities and those individuals should be familiar with the files. There might be a case where...because usually it’s a regular client, clientele, and those are the services that we provide to the communities. Every time we do an assessment in the...

Mr. Speaker, most definitely. The Minister of Health and Social Services is also the Minister of Persons with Disabilities and she’s also taking all kinds of notes sitting beside me, so, definitely, we’ll continue to work in those areas. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Yes, definitely, I’m willing to work with the NWT Housing Minister and also the Minister responsible for Persons with Disabilities, if that needs to be the case. With our programming, we do provide subsidies to people with disabilities above and beyond the regular programming that we offer to NWT residents. So we continue to make improvements in those areas and continue to provide subsidies. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I’m not aware of this particular issue that’s before us within another jurisdiction, but surely we can have our department look into that information in the B.C. jurisdiction. Mahsi.