Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories, through MACA and Public Works and Services, along with the RCMP and the city have looked at the issue. The biggest barrier for going forward right now is the lack of communication infrastructure in our communities. I guess following that, the big barrier is the cost of implementing such a service. We are looking at roughly $26 million or more to have it within the Northwest Territories and to have the service in all the communities. That is something that we are facing, are the resources required to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know there is some sense of urgency, but I wouldn’t think of going ahead without consulting with the Members of this House and the communities.

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There is a lot of interest. There are a lot of different issues that we have to deal with including what products we focus on next. There are plastic bags. There are tires. There are vehicles and all types of things that we recognize have to be dealt with. We are not going to be able to deal with all of them. We need the input from the communities and the general public. So we have to take the time. We have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t believe there is a tax, but I’d have to confirm that, Mr. Speaker. However, in the review of our Waste Reduction Recovery Program, tires and automobiles and e-garbage and things of that nature are being undertaken as part of a review that we’ve started now and will be reporting on by this fall, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There are a number of things we would like to do with this money. First of all, there is a need to continue to work on developing a tool kit for the New Deal program. This includes the cost of contract work including the cost of using the local government administrators. We also need to develop individual community implementation and transition plans. That would also mean having community government regional meetings. We would also have to host some workshops and there is a real need to do some training sessions. It would also include some dollars towards staff travel.

During our 2006 Summer Get Active challenge, nearly 18 percent of residents were recruited to log over 10 million minutes of physical activity. In the recently completed 2007 Get Winter Active challenge campaign, 380 NWT youth logged nearly 631,000 minutes of physical activity.

The 2007 Get Active campaign is posed to be even better with additional prizes for participants, special Get Active community events in all regions, and more partners joining in, including the Canadian Cancer Society, First Air, the Northwest Territories Recreation and Parks Association and many others.

As impressive as...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Chairman, sorry. Initially, we had four positions on a term expecting hearings and negotiations to be completed by this coming year. However, as everybody knows, the project has continued to move forward not as quickly as everybody expected. We have done a lot of work in terms of working with the communities to do the baseline studies. As the Member has indicated, we would expect MACA to have these as a matter of course. However, that’s not the case. We don’t have the information as to what assets are in the community, what size, what the capacity is. We also...

Thank you, Madam Chair. For $75,000 they are proposing a family violence survey. I disagree with that. If you want to get a survey of all the family violence that goes on, talk to the people at the front line. I think they will give you a much better survey. Who initiated this request for a survey? Was it the people that provide the services or is it another government initiative? The government seems to like to do surveys and studies. The people on the front line, I am sure, can use this $195,000 to enhance the programs and delivery of programs they already have. Thank you, Madam...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister makes a good point as we want to keep our students going to school in the North, but the high cost of living…It only makes sense that you may want to go to school south. Mr. Speaker, they are doing an income support redesign to reflect the high cost of living in some of the communities. Will they do the same thing with the Student Financial Assistance Program and have it implemented this fall? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly will continue to pursue this. It’s not something that we have as a high priority right now. There is still a lot of communication equipment and communication issues in our communities that we could focus on. There’s the issue of self-service, and self-service along the highway would maybe make more sense right now than implementing a huge, costly 911 service that is only going to serve a small part of the whole Northwest Territories. It’s something we’d have to sit down and talk with the other departments and the other agencies, but we’ll certainly follow up...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have the detail and the cost for breaking it out per community. We could, I guess, look at that. There’s a number of things that would come forward as one-time costs from the RCMP and also NorthwesTel or the provider and others. So we’d have to sit down and break all those numbers out. We haven’t looked at specifically providing it for one community. There’s still a cost factor. In fact, Yellowknife has made application to CRTC for some money and were turned down as this didn’t meet the program criteria. If there’s an interest, we certainly can sit down and...