Jackson Lafferty

Mr. Speaker, our department is open to any discussion that will certainly benefit all the communities of the Northwest Territories. This particular area, we have to involve the RCMP “G” Division in any discussion that is focused on enforcement or foot patrol, because they’re the ones who have the liability in that area, and also the agreements that we have in place with them through the federal contribution. So any meeting that needs to take place is not only the municipalities but also the RCMP “G” Division needs to be involved in those areas. So we’ll continue to work in that dialogue. Mahsi...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. This is one area that certainly was addressed at last week’s FPT meeting that I attended in Fredericton. Out of that meeting, the three territorial Ministers did discuss a strategy with the federal government to increase policing in the remote communities such as the Northwest Territories, the Yukon and also Nunavut. Out of that there is a plan in place which I’ll be sharing with the Members.

There is also a plan in place by the federal government, Mr. Speaker, a community officer program. There’s a pilot project for our jurisdiction and we are certainly looking forward to...

Mr. Speaker, the on-call duty officer can certainly assist those clientele whenever a client service officer is not available due to whether it be vacation or on sick leave. So those areas and the filing system is also taken care of. There is strictly a confidentiality that every client service officer respects and takes into consideration. So whenever there’s a client that’s calling into the receptionist, the receptionist should provide assistance, support, and also the phone numbers of certain individuals that they can contact. I do believe that they should provide those services. If not...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Certainly we deal with a number of clientele within the Northwest Territories and specifically for larger centres such as Yellowknife, we do have individuals that, whether they be a receptionist or a secretary at the front desk, should be able to assist clients whenever they approach the office, assisting them to connect to client service officers. They are certainly there to assist. There are certain hours of the day that they operate under, because it is under the federal building within the hours of operation. Those individuals should be there to assist with the...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document titled Building a Path for Northern Science, Government of the Northwest Territories Science Agenda.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Certainly those areas of discussion we can certainly have within my department, “G” Division and the municipalities of the Northwest Territories to strive towards trying to get more access and also resources and federal funding, and then also strategic thinking of territorial government funding in this initiative. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document entitled NWT Coroner’s Services 2008 Annual Report. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Those are the discussions that we are having, whether it be the centres, with our departments. Those individual communities that do not have a gymnasium, what can we provide to them that’s suitable or, as the Member alluded to, a gymnasium-like facility where we can deliver recreation activities. So we continue to work. Some communities have been very good being creative, being innovative, generating ideas on how we can improve on certain areas, transporting students to different communities. So those are the areas of the discussions we continue to have.

Small communities that do not have...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We just wasted last year -- April -- and we did an implementation. So those are the discussions that we’re currently having. What kind of other changes should we undertake? If it’s going to be a threshold increase, we need to find out the cost factor and/or exemption in the household. So that discussion is ongoing and if there is, like I said, any changes, I’ll be more than willing to come back to the standing committee and get their input in the future of possible changes. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

We did make some changes to our programming back in April of 2008 where we’ve increased the threshold of $10,000 so that it did benefit some of the elders in the communities. But with respect to more changes, we’re always re-evaluating a program where it’s based on the household income. A caretaker, it can be generic where a caretaker could be making upwards of $100,000 living with a grandma. We can’t just ignore that, Mr. Speaker, and certainly those are the assessments that we need to undertake. Now we’re looking at options of individual elders in a household having two or three individuals...