Julie Green

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I take the point of the Member for Nunakput, that some of our most contaminated sites were established at a time when environmental regulation was not as rigorous as it is today. Having said that, however, there are still a number of sites that are being established now that are not fully secured financially against future liability, and given the cost of operating in the North and the cost of remediating contaminated sites often in remote places, it's essential that we have the means to provide clean up in the event of the company leaving or going bankrupt. I do not...

I won't repeat the points that have been made by my colleagues, although I agree with them. This document reflects some of the major points that I campaigned on. The process has not been very gratifying. When the document was created, I thought that we had an agreement to make a limited number of very specific priorities for the Assembly, but it turned out that refining the document meant adding so that we went from five major areas to, I don't know, 137 subareas or something like that, and in the process what we lost was the ability to make SMART goals. What I mean by that is the acronym...

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Now, there was going to be money set aside from an athletes’ village for the Canada Winter Games, which is likely not going to be needed because the bid won't take place. Is it possible to use that money and multiply it with federal money in order to provide an additional $24 million to go into seniors’ care?

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister responsible for Seniors. How is the government preparing for the greater number of seniors and their needs? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the NWT's population of older adults is projected to grow dramatically in the next ten years. The number of adults over age 75 across the NWT is expected to double, and here in Yellowknife it's expected to triple. These numbers come from a strategic plan developed by Avens – A Community for Seniors.

If we want these seniors, along with their transfer payments and consumer spending, to stay in the NWT, we need to offer them affordable housing. Instead of enjoying a comfortable and secure old age, many seniors in Yellowknife face long waitlists to access the housing they need. A...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister look at the possibility of a P3 arrangement to provide this kind of care for seniors? Thank you. Mahsi.

Thank you, Minister, for that response and for that new information that quantifies the size of the problem. It's actually much larger than I had anticipated. There's some longterm work that needs to be done, but there are immediate needs, too, that come out of our broken continuum of housing for seniors, with these seniors who have dementia and longterm care needs that are currently inappropriately housed. What kinds of shortterm solutions might the government be able to offer these seniors?

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to acknowledge and congratulate Janet Diveky on her retirement from Public Works and Services. Mrs. Diveky taught throughout the Arctic before moving to Yellowknife with her husband and family in 1988. She joined Public Works and Services as a Library Technician then and again in 2003, with a return to teaching in-between. Mrs. Diveky is known for her volunteer efforts, especially with the Yellowknife Association for Community Living. She's also well known for her skills as a potter. I'd like to congratulate Mrs. Diveky on her career at Public Works and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm looking for a commitment from the Minister of Finance to follow evidence-based decision making in developing his budget. That would mean not only looking at the fiscal benefits of investing in infrastructure, but also in the potential problems of cuts, not only to the people who are working now, but to the possibility that they may also leave the territory and take their share of the Territorial Formula Financing funding with them. My question to the Minister is: Will he commit to evidence-based decision-making in this budgetary process?

Mr. Speaker, I don't think that hoping the public will give their input into the budget process is a very systematic response to the scale of change that the government is planning to make. Therefore, I would like to hear that the government is going to attempt some consultation on the budget in the next few weeks, whether that means visiting communities, having an online tool available, or putting ads in the paper, that there is a mechanism for people to respond to the big changes that are coming their way.