Wendy Bisaro

Thanks to the Minister. I understand. I know that we’re both coming from the same place and I accept his reassurance, but I would like to know from the Minister if that reassurance is written in a policy. Is there a policy somewhere that you can point me to? Or will there be a policy either before April 1st or as soon as possible after April 1st which will lay out just what the Minister said so that we are not left, as a government and as a territory, looking after liabilities that we didn’t create? Thank you.

Thanks to Mr. Schauerte. That’s great. That’s all I have.

Thanks to the Minister. I am well aware of those programs, and I don’t believe that they come from the 19 recommendations that came from the last Coalition Against Family Violence Action Plan. There were 19 recommendations in that plan. I’d like to know from the Minister if there is any intent on the part of this government to address any of those 19 recommendations in this upcoming budget?

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the Minister. So, do communities apply or is this a fixed percentage of forced growth that goes to every community across the board? Thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Family violence in the NWT is recognized as a problem, but do we really do enough to address it? Violence against women in the NWT is nine times greater than the national average. Several years ago the local YWCA developed and ran a project to look at ways to develop approaches and programs for addressing violence against women. It was a three-year project “to develop and pilot safety options for women fleeing violence in NWT communities without a local RCMP detachment.” That project proved very successful and it provided great insight into the environment in the NWT...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member has no comment. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister. That is what I was going to suggest, is that I don’t think there’s much point in leaving this money here and having it lapse every year. So I have a suggestion for the Minister and I think it probably would apply under public safety, but I think that this $168,000, or maybe at least part of it, should be available to communities to assist them in buying defibrillators for their public buildings. Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Thanks to Mr. Schauerte for that. I’m very glad that this is finally maybe coming to some kind of fruition. It’s an issue that the Information and Privacy Commissioner has raised for, I think, at least eight years. So it’s about time that the government actually took some action. So, no more questions. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, I move that we report progress.

---Carried

Thanks to the DM. I guess just in terms of the philosophy, I’m having great difficulty understanding if this is something that can be applied by each individual community, should they want to do it, why does the disagreement of a hotel operator in a community outside of Yellowknife, impact on the possibility of Yellowknife applying that levy? Thank you.