Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize a former constituent, Sarah Gargan, that used to live in Fort Providence. She is now living in Yellowknife, I believe. Thank you.

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, October 29, 2007, marked a very special day for municipal governance in the Northwest Territories. On that date, for the first time in over 20 years, a new hamlet was established in the Northwest Territories. That was when the Settlement of Enterprise officially changed its legislative status to become a hamlet.

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This important decision was made by community residents after many years of consideration of the impacts of greater authority and responsibility.

This is a very challenging time for all community governments in the Northwest Territories....

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Once again, those rules were not changed by myself or MACA. Those rules were agreed upon by all of the sports organizations, including Sport North. The decision was made a year ago to try to encourage more athletes to take part. I am sure we could have left it with some teams having vacant slots. I am sure we could have left some of the players in the communities having no place to try out on, but, Mr. Speaker, the intent here is to try to encourage more people to take part in the Arctic Winter Games, have a truly territorial sport and have opportunity for all of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t see how there could be a double standard with every organization agreeing to it. The rules were changed; I agree. There was an extension of the deadline. Everybody agreed to it, including the representatives from Yellowknife. Sport North represents Yellowknife. They agreed to the change. I agree that there should be a better interpretation of the policies. Maybe they need to be tightened up. But in this case, Mr. Speaker, there was an attempt to involve more participants, more of the youth, and that has happened. We have increased the participation...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I should correct the Member that MACA did not overrule the decision to extend the deadline for sporting events for Arctic Winter Games; that decision was made by the sports partners, including Sport North and the regional recreation associations. I believe the deadline was extended to allow for more participants. This year there were several changes made to the Arctic Winter Games process. There was a creation of a new region; the Sahtu region was created. There was also the decision made to allow for the Mackenzie region to make...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the two regions decided that they wanted to cross-fill some positions that were vacant on their team. There were a number of players that did not have teams to play on. There were a number of communities that didn’t have teams try out at all. In this instance with soccer, there were two players from Fort Smith that had no team to play on. Fort Smith did not have a team in that division. They requested, and were allowed, to try out for the Mackenzie regional team which had one vacant position. That position was filled by one player from Fort Smith....

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the agreement was between the Sports and Recreation Council and all the partners, that if there was consensus that a policy had to be adjusted or changed and everybody agreed, that they could do that. In this case, there would have been a very low turnout for Arctic Winter Games because the changes made for selections, they decided that they need to encourage more people to take part. I don’t see what was wrong with that decision, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In recent years, Mr. Speaker, we worked very closely with the NWT Association of Communities. We’ve also worked with LGANT, the Local Government Administrators of the Northwest Territories, and we’ve also worked with the community governments themselves to look at leveraging dollars from different resources. The federal government is a good example. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has the Green Fund that we’ve helped communities access. There’s also the impact and benefit dollars that flow to communities that communities have been using to help with some of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the New Deal is proving to be a very good deal.

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The whole concept of the New Deal, Mr. Speaker, was an initiative to promote greater autonomy of the community governments and allow communities to set their own priorities. The calculation that was used for the formula took into consideration the replacement value of a basic package of infrastructure for the community and looked at replacing all of that infrastructure over a 20-year period.

We’ve worked really closely over the last while with the communities to develop long-term goals for...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member brings forward concerns that have been raised to us by community governments and we have committed that we will work with community governments as we move forward with this initiative. We have to recognize, of course, that capital planning and capital projects are in need of constant evaluation and are changing on a daily basis. As part of this process, we encourage our communities to set up reserve pools to replace infrastructure. We’ve also created a lot more flexibility in the capital budgeting by way of if there’s a surplus, for example in...