Sandy Lee

As the Member knows, even multi-year agreements are subject to funding approvals. I’m sure the NGOs feel more comfortable in having multi-year contracts, but as I stated in the House, we’re not saying no to multi-year agreements. We believe that there is merit in that. Right now we are reviewing our budgets or our agreements and we will talk to the NWT Seniors’ Society in due course. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re not penalizing any NGO. Mr. Speaker, as part of the department’s budget review, we’ve implemented that all agreements would be for one year to allow for evaluation of how we are spending our funds and on the outcomes. That said, as I stated earlier, I think Member Hawkins asked this same question. We’re not saying no to multi-year agreements. We are reviewing our agreements as we go forward and we will make the decision at the end of this fiscal year.

As the Member knows, my department is under huge fiscal pressure and we are reviewing all the agreements. As I...

The Housing Corporation and the department will continue to support community programs for elders at the Joe Greenland Centre. We also plan to use the common area of the Joe Greenland Centre for an elders day program and continue access to the common area, kitchen, and specialized bathing equipment within the building which will be used by home care. The Beaufort-Delta Health Authority will continue to operate and there are also plans to use the common area and kitchen to provide a lunch program for elders every day, because we want to be in touch with the elders so that we have the constant...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is quite right in saying that we need to do more to support elders in our communities. For example, in Aklavik right now one home care worker is supporting 35 elders, as the Member stated on the radio this morning. We believe there are many more seniors in a community like Aklavik who could do a lot better with support from the government. What we propose to do is redesign the program so that we increase the level of home care in the community so that we can support as many as 100 elders in the community right now, just in Aklavik. We also want to be able to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We should first of all be clear that when we make a one-time infusion of cash, it’s very program specific. For example, I think medical travel is one that receives the most one-time funding due to the fact that that program goes over budget by demand.

Mr. Speaker, we are, as a system, working now with the understanding that deficits in our health authorities are not deficits to those health authorities but it’s a system-wide deficit. Many authorities right now are experiencing a deficit and we want to address that by changing the system and changing the way we manage our...

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated, the Centre for Northern Families has a unique challenge that the Department of ECE and I have been working on. We are committed to working with the organization and to support the organization to the extent possible. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In fact, it was. The increase in funding did happen. The increase was as a result of the recommendation from the action plan. The increase was provided under the Shelter Stabilization Enhancement Funds.

I have sat with the operators of shelters in Hay River and other communities. They have thanked us and the government for enhancing the funding. It was also part of the action plan that recognized that there are only five shelters in the Territories and that there are a lot of communities where we needed to support families and victims of family violence and it was for...

Mr. Speaker, that was one of the options that I was discussing with Education, Culture and Employment. It should be noted here that ECE and Health are a joint funder and supporter of this program. I know that the staff had been working with the organization. I will update the Member. I have asked for the information, I just don’t have it in front of me. Thank you.

There’s one thing that hasn’t changed, which is that for the last 10 years, well, I guess, not 10 years, the last three years the Member asked me about problems with deficits and he always says the same thing, that nothing is changing, when a lot of things are changing. Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that, more specifically, the system deficit that we had last year was $14.685 million but we are expecting about $11 million system deficit for this year. That is a huge progress. I think credit should be given where credit is due, because our management is working very hard to make long-term...

Yes, governance model review is underway, and I’ve indicated that in Committee of the Whole. It may be that we would have to decide on whether we should have one authority or not, but that’s something that we have to have more discussions on and we have to work with the authorities and do consultation with the community-at-large.

We should be mindful of the fact that that is not necessarily a silver bullet. We are aware of other jurisdictions where they have collapsed the boards and done all kinds of things in that regard without necessarily saving, I think.

I know the Member keeps saying that...