Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the list of people that the Minister mentioned that he spoke to, the deputy minister, all senior administration, but they are not the people that are being assessed. Have they spoken to tenants and are tenants telling them that this is a program that is working? These are the people that this program is designed for. We are speaking to everybody else but the tenants. Have they spoken to the tenants and got their opinion on the way things are working? Thank you.

I noticed more and more people on the streets in Inuvik. That causes me a great deal of concern. They are people that really have no place to go. A lot of them are addicted to alcohol. I am sure many of them would like to seek help. But when you need to get help up in the Beaufort-Delta, you have to leave the Beaufort-Delta.

I go back again to the spring when my Social Programs colleagues and I had an opportunity to visit a camp on the east branch which was being put up by the Nihtat Gwich’in. They are hoping to use this camp to deal with these types of situations where they could have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is my pleasure to provide Members with an update on the status of the community capacity building fund and to share information on the projects communities have started with assistance from this fund.

Members will recall that the community capacity building fund was established in 2005 with funding provided by the Government of the Northwest Territories. The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs administered this $35 million program, which was designed to flow funding directly to communities, to assist them to advance their unique priorities and address...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document entitled Youth Programs Annual Report, 2006-2007. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We always encourage our senior staff to get out of the offices and into the communities. We have a number of different initiatives out there that are utilizing traditional knowledge more and more. Protected areas, for example, is really an area that counts on the input from the knowledge of the people on the land. We will certainly have our people out there who will encourage all our senior staff to be involved and to make sure that they really fully understand and participate in this initiative. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources delayed the department in ensuring that traditional knowledge is utilized in all the different departments in the government. It is something that we continually remind the Ministers and departments to ensure that that happens.

Our policy, I believe, is hitting the 10 year mark. We recently had some discussion over the whole policy and how effective it is, and whether it needs to be revamped, at a recent conference in the community of the Hay River Reserve. It is something that we are going to undertake...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I sometimes wonder if there are 84,000 people in the Northwest Territories: 42,000 that they speak to and the other 42,000 that we speak to, because we are getting complaints from tenants that this is not working. The Minister says that he is getting no complaints. We are getting complaints, Mr. Speaker, that this is not working. Is there an option of transferring the responsibility back to the NWT Housing Corporation who was doing a good job of looking after it in the first place? Is that an option? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. It goes back to the transfer from the Housing Corporation to ECE for tenant assessments and the paying of rent. I would like to ask the Minister, this has been something that has been going on for a while now. Has the department done an assessment of the whole transfer and is it working? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with all of the illegal drugs that are starting to come out now, the single biggest addiction for years and years has been the abuse of alcohol. Mr. Speaker, every community that we visited over the last two and a half, almost three years that I have been here, almost the single biggest concern in every community has been the abuse of alcohol and the effects on the community and on their lives. I see some communities trying to take some initiatives now in dealing with the problems of alcohol. I think one community introduced prohibition just recently....

Yes, Mr. Speaker, we will share all of the findings of our evaluation on the traditional knowledge policy with the Members. Thank you.