Kevin A. Menicoche

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I just wanted this opportunity to comment on a few of the initiatives and a few of the issues in my communities that were raised with me during the course of my community tours. I think the biggest one is that as I tour all the smaller communities, they continue to raise the issues with the New Deal and capacity. They still really do not find that there’s enough money there to run their communities. One of the communities, the cost of street lighting alone far exceeds what was budgeted by the New Deal formula system. I think it was, like, $10,000 or $12,000 a...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’m pleased to recognize Marilyn Hardisty in the gallery here today, a former resident of Jean Marie River. Welcome.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I rise saying I will be supporting this motion today.

When there is uncertainty, nobody is very comfortable, especially when it comes to the Mine Training Society and their efforts to move forward. There are many, many success stories out there. I have a niece, Ms. Tyra Moses, who is an outstanding story. She has done very well out there and we’ve got many, many other success stories out there in the North. We must continue that. We must exert every effort to support our young people, people that want to get into mines and want to get into training.

Once again...

Sounds like some hoolay for the specific initiative. I’d like to ask the Minister if he can look in his department at the different types of programs to see what can fit to support this type of initiative. It’s very important to the community of Wrigley, very important to all our communities in the North, and interactions amongst the different communities is something that we should support as a government.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to follow up on my Member’s statement where I mentioned that the community of Wrigley is travelling for hand games and supporting an important cultural aspect of our Dene heritage. I’d like to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment what kind of support is out there in his department that could support the initiatives such as this.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. [English translation not provided.]

The community of Wrigley has really excelled at Dene hand games over the last three years. I am very proud to speak about that today, proud that they have a strong cultural belief system, they practice it and support each other and their youth. The Dene hand games is one of our strongest cultural experiences for the Dene of the NWT, on par with drum dancing, which we all love.

I believe our government should be supportive of this and provide resources to support the Dene hand games. We must make efforts to support and sustain this. As you...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I just want to go over a couple of things that I mentioned in my opening comments. Most particularly what’s troubling for me in my last tour was that there is no seniors program specifically designed for seniors. It really came to light on a couple occasions where there’s one senior, he had a broken furnace, he had a broken hot water tank, so we asked the Housing Corporation about emergency repairs and it turns out that he is probably like many other people throughout the North where he has exhausted all programming areas that the Housing Corporation has, like...

I’m certainly glad that the Minister is looking to the youth aspect of it. I think that’s a huge component of what’s happening in Wrigley.

Can I also ask the Minister if he can work with the Department of ITI? I know that we sponsor hand games at the Olympics and national events. Just an extension of this and that’s what the communities want. If we’re funding it anyways, can we bring it home? Can we bring it to the small communities?

It has been the case where they have been turned down with their requests and they have had to fundraise on their own. Especially for a small community that has little or no income, it’s very hard to fundraise. They did manage to support their culture and I’d like to ask the Minister if we can design some type of programming or be flexible with our program to include hand games cultural activities just to get people travelling around.

I certainly support a review of the program guidelines and criteria. I think what people were really saying to me is there’s got to be some flexibility when you’re evaluating this criteria and not just be so stern and be by the book. That’s what the people are looking for. I’d like to ask the Minister: can he direct his department to start to have a heart there, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.