Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize two constituents in the gallery: recent recipient of the cultural award and, most importantly, my uncle, Abel and Marcy. Welcome to the gallery. I’d also like to welcome the good folks from Never Say Die. Welcome.

Each community will usually have a recreation coordinator and they’ll hire their own youth workers as their budget allows.

What we’ve been able to do through the work of this Assembly is put more money into regional youth officers to work with the communities. We’ve also made the multi-sport games and the Youth Ambassador Program permanent line items in the budget. That assures us that those items are going to stay as part of the Legislative Assembly’s way of doing business.

The youth centre, the youth sports event through the work of the Rural and Remote Communities Committee have put almost...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The communities have done a really good job at identifying projects for the youth and they’ve been identifying dollars. They’ve actually been putting money towards it, and that’s been encouraging. I think one of the legacies of the 16th Legislative Assembly could be the amount of money that this Assembly has put into youth. Never has any Assembly before us put as much money into youth as we have, and it’s through the work of all Members of this Assembly identifying that youth are a priority, not only identifying that they’re a priority but actually putting money towards...

We can provide a communication as to where we’re at in this whole application process and the support we’ve provided. At the end of the day I think the municipal government plays a large, if not the largest, role in this situation that is happening out at Northland because those folks out there are municipal taxpayers. So I think the municipal government has to take a lead role or a larger role in the situation out at Northland. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The file in Ottawa is sitting on the Infrastructure Minister’s desk, who I think is Minister Lebel. He’s got the infrastructure file. At the same time, we supported the city’s application to try and access some of the green funding for the residents out at Northland Trailer Park. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Housing is always looking everywhere to see how we can help those folks pay down their arrears. Part of it was allowing people to get into a repayment plan where they pay X amount of dollars. In some cases, one case in particular, a lady paid for five or six years until she managed to pay it all. It was very small amounts she paid each month. But the Member has a point, though, and it was an innovative solution that was reached in Tsiigehtchic. That’s one thing we try to encourage our department and all our folks out in the front line to try to come up with innovative...

Mr. Speaker, I’m sure all the communities come forward and make their case to MACA on the amount of funding that they receive, and if the communities make a good enough argument for funding for a position such as the one the Member is speaking of, I’m sure the department will be more than happy to have a look at it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The funding allocation is to the communities and the communities will decide how to allocate that funding and how to budget for them, and if they feel that they have the adequate funding to budget for a fire chief, which in this case they did, they bring on a full-time fire chief, and I commend them for that. But as far as correlating to extra funding to the community from our department, we have pretty well a set figure. I can advise the Member, though, that we are working on a review of O and M funding for the communities and we’re hoping to have that work done...

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that Bill 7, Community Planning and Development Act, be read for the third time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

That’s a very good point, because the taxpayers like to see that their tax dollars are well spent. They are trying to provide a service to a lot of people in low-income housing and we need those people to work with us, otherwise it’s never going to work, and this is one of those cases.

We need to find a solution for this. As badly as it’s gotten, maybe part of it is because the LHO did not condition them early enough in the life of the Paulatuk Housing Authority to have to pay rent. If you look at some of our better performing communities, we have communities where they’re collecting 100...