Michael McLeod

Mr. Speaker, I believe we’ve already done that. We’ve taken the review from our staff and all the technical evaluation that was required and made note of where our concerns were. We have forwarded and are recommending to the department that they seriously come forward with a retrofit for this facility. It is 34 years old and is due for a serious upgrade to remove some of these areas of concern that the parents have and that their children may be facing.

Mr. Speaker, our job is to do the evaluation and take an assessment of the condition of the school. We have done that. We’ve shared that with the principal and the MLAs. We’ve also forwarded it to the Department of Education. They are making an assessment and will make the decision to bring it forward.

Public Works doesn’t purchase art or provide for art. I would have to make that request to the planning department, and I’ll do that.

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, 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...

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...

Mr. Speaker, the answer is yes. We’ve had requests and we’ve funded programs with the Inuvialuit and we’ve also worked with the Dehcho First Nations and others, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a budget under our youth portfolio for youth core programs. The criteria, this will be dollars that could be used for youth camps. We’ve funded, through our youth programs last year through the youth contribution and the Youth Corps Program, a total of, I believe it’s 55 different initiatives, and a good portion of those were youth camp-type workshops or on-the-land programs. So there are a number of ways we can provide for the youth to be on the land or be with the elders. The Department of Health, I believe, also has some Summer Camp Program dollars that...

Thank you. I think, Mr. Speaker, we’ve done and taken the first step towards that by meeting with the committee and informing them of the process and the steps that we need to take. The first step, of course, is to sign a framework agreement. We hope to do that by sometime in December, and then we’d like to move forward with a funding agreement. We’ll be sitting down with committee to address the priority areas and the areas that we would like to see investment in. Thank you.