Robert C. McLeod

Thank you. This government takes the future of the youth quite seriously. With the Youth Parliament they have every second year, it gives them an opportunity to see how we work here. As well, through Municipal and Community Affairs we have the Youth Ambassador Program, which is actually an excellent program and every opportunity I have to speak on it is most welcome, but we just had a recent intake. So we’re in the process of having intake now. We get applications from youth, I believe, from 17 to 24 across the Northwest Territories, and they have an excellent opportunity to broaden their...

Thank you. We welcome any opportunity that we have to interact with the youth and hear their opinions. I don’t know if I was aware of the event that was taking place in Fort Providence. Perhaps if the MLA had invited me I would have gone.

---Laughter

So I'll put some of the blame back on the Member. We welcome any opportunity we have to work with the youth. We have an excellent team over at MACA that works with youth and they’re all over the place, all parts of the Northwest Territories working with the youth. So we welcome any opportunity, and if there’s an opportunity for me to meet with the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Through MACA we deliver a large number of programs and we have funding for many youth initiatives. We went through the numbers during the debate on the budget back in February or March. The youth centre funding program is one of them. We do support some youth centres. We have a lot of youth initiatives. There is a long list. I could compile a list and provide it or even table it in this House as to the number of programs we have for the youth and the amount of money that we allocate to these programs.

Mr. Speaker, I had been here for five weeks prior and I’m not saying when the Members can or cannot ask questions, but the Member’s MO, as has been demonstrated in the past, is to ask questions of a Minister he knows is not here. I had gone to the Arctic Winter Games…

---Interjection

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not sure what the Member is trying to prove, but I was representing the Government of the Northwest Territories at an international event and I stand by that statement. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is taking offence to the comments that I made by telling the truth, I will withdraw that comment and apologize. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, it was going to take me a while to get to Fairbanks and the Member had five weeks prior to ask the Minister of MACA questions. Thank you.

Thank you. No end to the surprises from the Member.

I did go back to Inuvik, gassed up my truck, drove down to Whitehorse on my way to Fairbanks to attend the Arctic Winter Games. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the athletes, coaches, cultural delegates and mission staff who will be representing the Northwest Territories at the 2014 Arctic Winter Games in Fairbanks later this month.

This year, Team NWT will include 365 participants representing over half of NWT communities competing in 19 different sports and the Games’ cultural program.

The Arctic Winter Games are the largest and most important multisport cultural event held in the circumpolar North. There are nearly 2,000 athletes, cultural performers and community volunteers from nine contingents representing...

Thank you, Madam Chair. This has been a discussion that was had in the 15th and was had again in this Assembly. It’s a good discussion and I don’t think it’s a matter of picking one group over another. I think the Electoral Boundaries Commission had done a fairly good job in going out there with the terms of reference respecting different areas and cultures of the Northwest Territories. That’s why we see such a discrepancy in the numbers today.

I, along with Mr. Blake and Mr. Moses, represent communities that have a fairly large Gwich’in/Inuvialuit population. Neither of us speaks either of the...