Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your committee has been considering Tabled Document 1-17(2), Interim Appropriation 2012-2013, and would like to report progress with two motions being adopted. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister for Municipal and Community Affairs and I’d like to follow up on my Member’s statement. Since Volunteer NWT folded, I think most non-profit and non-government organizations in the NWT have found it much more difficult to do their job. They have volunteer boards and they have less volunteers to work with. I think it’s been a loss to all of the NWT in the fact that they can’t provide the same services to the effectiveness that they could before when Volunteer NWT was alive and well.

I’d like to ask the Minister, I noted on...

Question is being called.

---Carried

So, item number 11, Transportation, $29.848 million, is deferred. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the GNWT departments are developing their business plans right now, I want to comment today on the importance of volunteers and volunteer groups, and I want to comment on the need for adequate funding for this most valuable human resource.

The GNWT seems to recognize the value of volunteers. We had a 2005 Declaration on Volunteering and a Volunteer Support Initiative. We all recognize the importance of volunteers, at least we should. The work of Northerners in the voluntary sector touches us daily. Volunteers and volunteer groups build communities through their work...

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Mr. Menicoche, did you have a motion?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Moses.

Thanks to the Premier. I’m getting a little more confused. The Premier’s now saying that we will draft a strategy and then I thought I heard him say that there will be some consultation after that.

I need to go back to comments that the Premier made in December, and I believe he then talked about a discussion paper relative to the Anti-Poverty Strategy, that one was in development. I don’t see any reference to a discussion paper in his statement today and I haven’t heard anything in his answers to my questions yet. I’d like to ask the Premier whether or not the discussion paper that he...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Premier. I’d like to follow up on my statement but also the Premier’s statement today. I’d like to start off by saying I really appreciate the statement that the Premier did make today and that there is a commitment to action on the part of the government towards an Anti-Poverty Strategy. The Premier, I believe, stated that it is time to begin work. I would say that it is well beyond the time to begin the work, but I’m very happy that it is going to start.

We have heard that basically this work is going to start. We’ve also heard...

Just a comment. I would like to say that I think this is an area in which we need to be well aware that it’s one of our priorities. It’s an area which will only serve to make us more efficient over the long term. I’m glad to hear the Minister say, I think I heard him say that it’s a priority for him to try and reinstate some of the funding, the $60 million funding that we had in the last Assembly. I would encourage him and all departments to take him up on his advice and make sure that we do have a major funding for energy projects in the full budget that’s coming up in May/June.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m sorry; I am a little confused. I did want to know, when I look at the spending for ITI I realize it’s for a three month period but the spending for energy is $112,000. It’s an extremely puny amount compared to what we have been used to spending annually over the last four years. I’d like to know from the Minister if that is an indication of the funds that we’re going to be spending on energy projects in the next fiscal year, or is there a particular reason why this is such a small amount?