Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Mr. Abernethy, do you have witnesses that you would like to bring into the House?

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. I will open the floor to general comments. Are there any general comments? Mr. Dolynny.

I have to disagree with the Minister. This would not be a quick fix. We’ve been studying this problem for a very long time, and I think the Minister, were he to look at the asks that the people in the communities have been making over many years, I think he would find that there were things that we could do right now. We need supports in our communities.

I’d like to ask the Minister – he was with me when we did the Child and Family Services Act review – did the Minister hear from the communities what I heard, that they need supports on the ground?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would just like to explain why this is being done here. When committee went through the Legal Aid Act we did feel very strongly as a committee that we wanted to make sure that legal aid did cover matters of child protection. So we amended a different clause to add the words “child protection” in another clause elsewhere in the bill. At the time that the bill was being reprinted it was noticed that in this particular clause, Clause 10, there was a reference to family or civil matters but there was not a reference to child protection. So child protection is being added...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The debate that committee had and the work that committee did on this bill as a whole was really interesting. There were over 10 amendments made by committee to which the Minister, over time, concurred. We found middle ground on a couple of them, but, in general, there were some very good amendments that were made which made the act a better act.

This one particular amendment or change that was suggested at committee was hotly contested. We had quite a good debate around the whole issue. Committee was split; we could not agree. I think the opening remarks by the deputy...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I’m really glad to hear that hockey will be all together. I think that only makes sense.

My last question is a statement, I suppose, a comment to the Minister. I hope that he will keep the pressure on, and with the other sports Ministers that he’s already working with that he will keep the pressure on the Arctic Winter Games International Committee, and I would ask him if he could keep us up to date as things progress in the spring.

Thanks to the Minister for the information. I guess I would like to know, and I imagine many of the people who might hear this, our conversations in the House, would also like to know, what some of the options are that have been presented by these sports to give their kids, their athletes an opportunity for a major event in 2016.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I’m really glad to hear that training is going to be happening. I hope it’s ongoing. I would just suggest that the Minister consider mentoring as a training tool.

My last question to the Minister has to do with late fees. If an income support cheque is late and a client is paying late fees on, say, rent or a phone, are those late fees paid for by the department because it’s not the fault of the constituent? Thank you.

To the Minister, the problem in this case was not that the documentation was missing. This client is extremely particular and would have had all the documents in order. The problem in this case was a staff shortage, and that was admitted to my constituent in an e-mail, that there was a staff shortage and things were behind. So I don’t think we can lay this particular delay in payments at the feet of the constituent.

This was definitely a department problem and I didn’t hear an answer to what the Minister accepts as an acceptable delay. But since there are delays and since there are staff...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. October was a tough month for Yellowknifers on income support. It seems that the income support division at Education, Culture and Employment in late September and early October had a staff shortage, computer problems, who knows what other problems, and they got more than a little behind in the processing of income support payments. One of my constituents dutifully sent in all the necessary documents early in September, the usual time, expecting a bank deposit at the usual time. A week into October the bank deposit had not appeared. There was a polite but cryptic e-mail...