Michael McLeod

I have to inform the Member that we haven’t had the opportunity to discuss this policy recommendation to any degree at all. We do, however, incorporate some consideration when we deal with committees in terms of cultural setting and cultural enhancements. I will, however — I said earlier — undertake to have that discussion with my colleagues.

That’s an easy response. I believe we’ve already agreed that municipalities should be receiving some of this money. We’re having some early discussions with the local government association, and also we’re talking to associations in the communities about how can we distribute this money and what kind of dollars are we talking about.

We need to set some criteria, and we need to be able to decide how that money will flow. So those things are ongoing. I can assure the Member that it will get serious consideration from this new line of funding from the government.

Our government takes a multi-barrier approach to dealing with water and water quality in communities. It’s a real area of concern, as Members would agree. We have a number of different departments working on water supply to communities. We have the ENR, which works on the source of water. We have MACA, which has testing of water treatment plant and also does the training. We have the Department of Health which does the testing for health purposes, and Public Works which works on some of the infrastructure projects.

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of different departments and a number of...

Mr. Speaker, the Member’s statement regarding the challenges facing communities in hiring trained recreational workers and paying them a salary that is comparable across the board is something we’ve recognized for some time. The N.W.T. Sports and Recreation Council has recognized it. We’ve had some early discussions on it. They have been quite concerned about the level of investment that goes into the bigger events, such as our Winter Games, Canada Games, and want to have discussions about what the challenges are in the community and the possibility of redirecting finances. So my answer to the...

Over the years we have really made the attempt to enhance our investments in our communities to deal with some of the real challenging areas. Recreation, of course, has been one area that we needed to see improvements in. We’ve increased the O&M funding to all our communities across the Territories, and in some cases that has been fairly significant. However, the investments are at the community council level — sometimes recreation doesn’t come out on the top, and other priorities overcome it in terms of investment.

We have certainly tried to expand our School of Community Government programs...

I guess I should first point out that recreation workers work for the community governments and not for our government directly. We, in turn, have, through the new deal program, really tried to enhance the government funding in the communities. We also have a community recreation contribution program which all communities can apply to. We, as a government, spend roughly $5 million in the area of sports and recreation. The N.W.T. Sport and Recreation Council spends close to the same, around $4.5 million. We have increased our money through the youth centres, the youth contribution. So there is...

Mr. Speaker, energy costs are a concern to all of us. Public Works and Services has had the opportunity to test out a more economically and environmentally friendly alternative energy source at the North Slave Correctional Facility.

Providing heat for buildings using wood pellet boilers has been common practice in Europe for decades. It has provided reliable heating for hotels, office buildings and recreational facilities from Austria to Siberia. These systems save money due to the use of less expensive wood by-products, specifically crushed sawdust pellets. They also significantly reduce...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have not provided any projects to the federal government at this point. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’d be glad to consider any applications that come forward from any of the communities across the Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would have to commit to coming back with that information. I know our programs are oversubscribed. We have, as I indicated, about 55 different initiatives and a great deal of them are geared towards youth at risk, and a lot of them are using it for different types of camps. We also have the Youth Abroad Program. We have the foster family coalition camp, and a sports and youth leadership conference, and youth forums and things of that nature, Mr. Speaker. However, I would have to commit to getting back with the number of applications that we receive overall....