Julie Green

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. That's a logical solution to that issue. Given that contracting services are mainly provided through the shared services model, over which individual departments have very little authority, can the Minister please explain our current system for monitoring and evaluation to ensure that contracts meet departments' needs and the public gets the best value for money? Mahsi.

Thank you to the Minister for that answer. In 2012, as the Minister is aware, the Auditor General of Canada released a status report on the 2009 audit on GNWT contracting for goods and services. They found that significant improvements had been made, but the errors were still found in 15 of 44 sample contracts. As a result, the Auditor General considered progress on contract administration to be unsatisfactory. Can the Minister tell us what improvements and quality assurance processes have been made since then?

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to welcome many of the people who've already been welcomed: the staff from A New Day program; the leaders of the NWT Association of Communities; and I saw Alex Lambrecht, the new President of the Northern Territories Federation of Labour. I think it's really important for us to have leaders here who we can collaborate with and who support us in the things that we're doing. Thank you.

I beg your pardon, Mr. Speaker. May I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement?

---Unanimous consent granted

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to start by saying how very proud I am of my colleague Mr. Nadli. He has taken constructive steps to make himself a better man by starting on this healing journey, and we are all the better for it.

Mr. Speaker, women experience violence in greater numbers than men, but it's true that men also experience violence, and the effects of this violence include things like injuries, depression and other mental health issues, disease, addiction and even death. There are economic costs as well, mostly with loss in productivity but also the cost of treatment that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to congratulate all the award winners and I would like to introduce my neighbour and constituent, Karen Wright-Fraser, who helped organize today's events. Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Many legislatures across the globe face a common problem: Their citizens are neither knowledgeable about, nor very satisfied with them as institutions. This political disengagement, coupled with generational change, increased policy and legislative complexity, declining scrutiny by traditional media, and the growing influence of social media have all contributed to the sense of a growing democratic deficit between the public and the lawmakers.

In an effort to bridge this democratic deficit, there has been a worldwide shift towards open government. Public engagement strategies...

Of course, the Minister knows that income assistance is a last resort. The criteria for receiving income assistance is that you have used every one of your resources, including your savings, selling your house, selling your car, that you have nothing left. That's the premise for applying for income assistance. So I want to ask, again, whether the Minister will ensure that this promise to increase food levels will, in fact, be part of this government's agenda as well?

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of ECE. No, sorry. I have two sets of questions. I am on the wrong one. Heads up. My questions are for the Minister of Transportation. Just kidding. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture, and Employment. Is the Minister prepared to continue to stick to the promise made by the previous Finance Minister and continue catching up food allowances for income assistance recipients so that they are up to 2014 levels? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'll look forward to that confirmation from the Minister. Finally, I'm going to repeat the question that commentators and frontline service providers as well as I have been asking: will the Minister recognize that taking away the food and clothing allowance for children under 18 was the wrong thing to do and to reinstate that allowance immediately? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.