Jane Groenewegen

Mr. Chair, I move that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources retain and continue to operate the existing fleet of government-owned Canadair CL-215 amphibious firefighting aircraft; and further, that the department of Environment and Natural Resources work closely with Municipal and Community Affairs’ School of Community Government to expand effort in training and developing community firefighters in all regions to promote awareness of fire protection responsibility at the community level. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I’m going to go back and check Hansard and see how many words I actually got in in that two and a half minutes.

People need to manage their expectations. We need to empower people to give them choices and options of how they can control their cost of living. People also need to take personal responsibility.

You know, I’m probably not going to be the most popular MLA in the Northwest Territories for saying this right now, but when we talk about the cost of living in all these communities, wouldn’t it be an interesting exercise to see in every community of the Northwest Territories how much...

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister Miltenberger.

Mr. Speaker, like I said, I hate to see things regress; I hate to see things torn down; and we are going to throw away federal money for Aboriginal Head Start; we’re going to throw away the community participation and the dollars, the volunteers, because we’re saying we’re going to take over educating the four-year-olds, and we’re not going to do a very good job with the plan that we have in hand.

I’m going to ask the Minister today, later on, if he will go back to the drawing board. Let’s start again, let’s find out where the need is, let’s identify the resources, and let’s come up with a much...

Thank you. I will ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witnesses to the table.

For the record, Mr. Miltenberger, could you please introduce your witnesses?

I’d like to call Committee of the Whole back to order and the department up next is the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. I’d like to ask Minister Miltenberger if he would like to bring witnesses into the Chamber.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Does committee agree?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank Mr. Bromley for taking a lead role in drafting this motion. Reading this motion you may think that a lot of it applies to the Avens development here in Yellowknife, but I think that it sets a template and it sets a precedent and sets a good model of how our government can respond to our seniors in the Northwest Territories requiring extended care and care in their later years.

The demographic of our aging population in the Northwest Territories is irrefutable. It’s great news. People are living longer, people are living longer more independently, but...

Mr. Chairman, I would like to move that we report progress.

---Carried

It is indeed confusing. At first I thought the Minister was saying that he was going to inventory the preschool programs in the communities, and now he says they’ve already done it. If he’s going to say he’s going to do it now, I was going to suggest wouldn’t that have been a good thing to do before you rolled out the Junior Kindergarten.

Anyway, the Minister last week referred to the specialized education that the teachers of children in early childhood development and Junior Kindergarten would require. The Minister indicated that that training had already taken place.

Again, could the...