Michael McLeod

I would like today, Mr. Speaker, to pay tribute to one of the main players of these groups.

I recently had the privilege of attending the Aboriginal Achievement Awards in Edmonton to honour a man of great vision and passion. Fred Carmichael, Mr. Speaker, has been on a quest to get, not only for the people he represents but the people of the Northwest Territories, what is rightfully ours. Fred has been a trapper, pilot, businessman and, more recently, he’s been the president of the Gwich’in Tribal Council. He has been there, he’s done that. So when he speaks, we should listen and pay attention...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I'd like to speak on an issue that has been brought to my attention by a few constituents in Inuvik. That, Mr. Speaker, is the fact that some of the departments of the GNWT are asking for medical prognosis when employees are given medical leave by a doctor. To me, Mr. Speaker, that violates the doctor/patient confidentiality. If the doctor gives the employee a leave form saying that they can't be at work for a week, that's between the employee and the doctor. I don't think it has anything to do with the department. I don't think the department...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s a pleasant surprise to see a number of constituents in the gallery, especially now that the ferry is not operating.

---Laughter

From our smallest community in the North, Kakisa, we have a number of people here, a number of students. We have Dalton Simba, Waylon Simba, Shyanne Chicot and Sheila Hilliard. I’d like to welcome them to the gallery, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe the Member is referring to a concern that was brought forward this year as the result of Sport North levying some penalties. I guess it should be clear that Sport North is an independent body; they are registered a society; they have their own administration; these are their own rules; these are the members of their partnerships. There are two types of penalties that are being levied here. There are penalties for late filing of their accounting and their forms and the general accounting practices, and there’s also some penalties that are being levied as a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I, too, wanted to recognize Sam Gargan from my hometown of Fort Providence, former Speaker and MLA for Deh Cho. Welcome.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That has been an issue for some time at the NWT Sports and Recreation Council’s meetings, and it’s been raised by a number of the organizations, and it’s been brought to our attention, and it’s something that we are really concerned about. As I indicated earlier, we are looking at ways that we can ease the administrative burden on all our organizations by either having better reporting or more user-friendly reporting systems, providing some of the additional dollars through some of our new federal programs that we’re hoping we’ll be receiving to provide some resources...

Mr. Speaker, later today, I will be tabling the revised Northwest Territories Greenhouse Gas Strategy.

---Applause

In 2005, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources took a stakeholder review of the previous Greenhouse Gas Strategy released in 2001. This review revealed the existing strategy was on the right track and represented a good start towards managing greenhouse gas emissions. It also identified shortcomings, including a lack of emission reduction targets, the absence of an implementation plan, insufficient funding and a general lack of accountability for results.

The revised...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re not in a position to tell anybody to dissolve or force them to dissolve. We’ve assured all organizations that they will continue running as they are currently operating. We have set up a board now with the sports council that everybody has a voice, everybody can share in the discussion. There’s a methodology of everybody coming together. We’re hoping that at some point some of the organizations are going to recognize that there is some merit to working under one roof, one umbrella structure. We’re not quite at that stage yet; however, some of that discussion with...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are expecting the new Sports and Recreation Council to ensure that all communities have a voice in the decision-making. It was, for the most part, from the smaller communities and from communities that didn’t have TSOs raising concerns over many years that they didn’t have a mechanism for them to talk about sports and recreation. This has changed now and we’re also expecting the Sports and Recreation Council, through this whole system, to streamline decision-making and also to streamline program delivery. We would expect, now that everybody’s working off...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The whole concept behind forming the NWT Sports and Recreation Council was to try to pull all the organizations under one roof and to set up a funding program that would give everybody a fair share of the dollars as they delivered their own programs. It was also a cost-cutting measure so that the organizations would start to share some of the administration, cut down on the administrative costs and be able to put more dollars towards programming. Mr. Speaker, this has been working quite well. All the organizations are operating under one roof. We plan to put our sports...