Robert C. McLeod

We have youth workers in all the regions in the Northwest Territories and part of their duties would be to try and keep the communities updated as much as possible on the programs that are available to the youth as well. We have a website and there’s an excellent youth website that they can go on to see what programs are available to the youth.

The department does a really good job on trying to get as much information out there so we can access applications from all over the Northwest Territories, and I think we’re starting to see an indication that youth out there are being reached because we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We recognize that investment in our youth is in an investment in our future, and to that end I think, with the support of the Legislative Assembly, we’ve contributed much funds to the young people in the Northwest Territories and given them an opportunity to broaden their horizons. The Northern Youth Abroad is a classic example of that.

Over the last two or three years, we’ve had 63 young people go through the program; I think 49 in the Canadian phase and about 14 in the international phase. We contributed, through our Youth Core Program, $100,000 to Northern Youth...

Thank you. In this day and age of electronic communication, I think that it’s a lot easier to reach all those across the Northwest Territories. Pretty well everyone is on the computer and has access to the Internet, but I will work with my colleague, the Minister of Education, and our own youth workers to ensure that we get all this information out to all the schools across the Northwest Territories so youth out there have an opportunity to access our programs. Thank you.

Thank you. The Northern Youth Abroad Program, as these young people are ambassadors for the Northwest Territories, we see many of these young people moving into our Youth Ambassador Program, which is a great program that’s also funded by MACA. So it gives them a really good experience, and we continue to do what we can to support them financially so they have an opportunity to see the rest of the country, as well as the rest of the world. Thank you.

We work closely with the communities to identify potential water sources as parts of the funding that they receive, especially under the Gas Tax Agreement. They do have the ability under that program, and I know Kakisa gets probably about $160,000 for that program. That is for water treatment and distribution. They can utilize that money. As well, they get over $600,000 in community infrastructure money that they receive every year. They’re able to utilize that money to help with building a new water treatment plant. There have been some cases in the past where communities have worked together...

The communities usually identify a 20-year capital plan and we work closely with them on that. If the communities of Kakisa and Enterprise are exploring the idea of building a water treatment plant, then we would be more than willing to work closely with them. We usually wait for an invitation from the community saying they want to look at these issues, and we would go in there at their request and work with them to come up with a solution that is best for all, including possible financing options. We’ve had some communities use their infrastructure money to access loans from the bank and that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It has been the goal of the Legislative Assembly in the past to empower the communities. It’s one of the reasons the New Deal for community governments was brought about in 2004, and that enables the communities to make decisions affecting their communities a lot better than we can. One of the decisions that they could make is on the provision and distribution of water supply services.

The only possible barrier that I can see to these communities not operating their own water treatment plants is because they just don’t have the desire to. All the other tools are in place to enable some of these communities to work with our department to identify potential sites, help them with the planning. The only barrier right now is their lack of willingness, and that can be reconciled.

Again, it’s the will of the community. If the community is serious about potential relocation, then we would have to look at identifying some resources to start the planning and working with the community on a possible relocation.

Support from the community is the key word here. We would like to see the community committed to this through a formal motion or possible plebiscite, because moving a community will have an effect, especially on the elders who are used to living there and have lived there their entire lives. We would have to have community support to consider it.