Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Member’s concern. As you pointed out, we are working with communities to have their energy plans and we can’t assume that the communities are incapable of building infrastructure that would be to their advantage to build it according to the highest standards possible. I think we’re starting to see that in a lot of the communities. They understand the savings that they could potentially make. So we’re starting to see that. We’ll continue to work with them and encourage them to look at the standards that they’re building. But I’m fairly confident and I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following two documents titled 2009 Volunteer Summit Report and the Northwest Territories High Performance Athlete Grant Program. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there is no grey area. The formula funding is flowed to the communities to deal with a lot of infrastructure that is required in communities and the community makes the decision as to how they want to spend the money that’s flowed through them. You can’t budget for unforeseen. It’s impossible to budget for unforeseen. We deal with those as they happen.

There was a situation that the Member was referring to where something happened in his community. The community saw that a need was there and they took care of it right away and, working with MACA, we were able to...

Mr. Speaker, I will have discussions with the department and follow up on the Member’s comment on the report. I haven’t seen the report personally and I would be quite interested in having a look at it. I will follow up and see what recommendations or actions may have come out of the report because of the flood of a few years ago.

I’ll say again that we continue to assist communities in identifying a lot of their priorities and if shoreline erosion is one of the priorities from Aklavik, then we’d be willing to work with the community to try and identify sources of funding for the project and...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member wanted to make something quite clear and so do I. I never made the comment that Members didn’t care about the communities. I don’t think I’m that stupid, to be quite honest with you. What I said, and the Member talks about the 14 years that he’s been here, and he’s been able to see the devolution of authority to the communities and he’s able to see the past history where a lot of the small community projects got into the corporate plan and they were basically just bumped and bumped and bumped each year when other emergencies come up. So I just wanted to make...

The Housing Corporation will be willing and the Housing Corporation has been taking the lead on a lot of the training. They’ve provided packages to some of the schools where they can use that for training. So we are quite interested in making sure that we’re able to have our Northerners trained in building these units. I would commit to the Member that I’ll have discussions with my Cabinet colleagues as to some of the training monies that we’re able to access to help see this come about. Thank you.

As I stated before, the basic shelter concept is one we’re looking at right now. We need to make sure that we do our due diligence on this one and just not roll it out until we’ve been able to see that it’s something that the communities really do want and something that will work in the communities, and that we won’t have to be asked to go back later and install running water and other things, which has happened in the past. So we will be doing our due diligence on this one and making sure that when we do roll it out, it’s something that’s a worthwhile product. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I will have discussions with my colleagues as to if there is anything we can do to support the seniors. We have supported them in the past. I think it is being noted by a lot of the participants from the other jurisdictions across the country that we do look after our seniors pretty good. They were the envy of the games, because a lot of it was financial backing that they got from this government it was noted. A lot of people appreciated that. So I will work with my Cabinet colleagues, and, also, we would like to support regional seniors’ games if that opportunity arises, because...

Mr. Speaker, I said we will have a discussion as to the process of funding adult sports and I will put the adults in with the seniors, because there will be a lot of requests coming from other sporting organizations, other adult sports groups.

If we were to start this, we do have a mandate to focus the multisport games on the youth. I could have a conversation with my Cabinet colleagues and see if there are pots of money available, but I really can’t make a commitment -- I don’t think I did -- that we are going to fund this from the multisport budget. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I will commit to meet with the DEA. It is always in our best interest to hear what the communities are saying, because they know best what is needed in their communities. If we can work in cooperation with them, that would make the whole process a lot smoother and we will be able to provide housing for staff and a lot of the professionals in the small communities. Thank you.