Wendy Bisaro

Frame Lake

Statements in Debates

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 6th Session (day 1)

I didn’t really hear a focus on foods and nutrition within the Minister’s answer, but I’d like to read one comment from an educator in a school that is unnamed, but the statement goes: “As soon as the students arrive at school, the breakfast teacher asks the students if they’ve eaten breakfast. They cannot go to their classroom without eating breakfast. That is how important breakfast is to our students’ learning.” I’d like to ask the Minister whether or not there is any appetite on the part of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to reinstate the $400,000 that is sunsetting...

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 6th Session (day 1)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. March is Nutrition Month and according to the statement made by the Health and Social Services Minister last week, this government believes it’s adequately addressing healthy eating programs by providing support, as she put it. The Minister named a few programs which provide that support. Programs which are fine in and of themselves, but they hardly represent a coordinated targeted approach to improving healthy eating amongst our youngest children or to the significant issue of the need for prevention and early intervention amongst the same group of children.

In this...

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 5th Session (day 51)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to speak a bit to this bill. I do feel that the Dog Act as presented is a far improved act from what we had before. There are certainly provisions in there which are going to make things much easier for prosecutions to happen.

I do have a concern, however, with the section that deals with accepted activities and the section which allows for exceptions and exemptions to certain activities. I don’t feel that part of the bill is necessary. I stated that yesterday and I just wanted to restate it.

That said, the bill as a whole is far better than what we currently...

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 5th Session (day 51)

I guess I’ll have to ask the Minister if he can commit to provide me with that information since he hasn’t mentioned what that is. One of the things that happened during the building of Bailey House was that the units were designed to a certain size and the Housing Corporation came along and said that they needed to be larger. By making those units larger, that increased the cost of running that facility. It led them to the situation where they are right now, where their revenues don’t meet their expenses. The tenants at Bailey House can’t afford any more than the $800 or $900 that they’re...

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 5th Session (day 51)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned at the end of my statement, my questions are directed to the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation.

During the review of the budget of the NWT Housing Corporation, the president of the Corporation, Mr. Polakoff, made a couple of statements. He said, in terms of transition housing, the Housing Corporation has provided significant funding to a number of facilities in the past. Further on he said there’s an opportunity for transitional housing through the overall housing continuum. I’d like to ask the Minister for Housing, the transitional housing...

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 5th Session (day 51)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Reducing poverty in our Territory has been a priority for this Assembly and very much a priority for me in this job. We’ve made some progress as a government, but certainly not enough.

The high cost of housing and housing shortages are a big part of the poverty problem. Many of our residents who work hard but earn low incomes simply cannot afford rent in Yellowknife and the regional centres. We’re fortunate to have some transitional housing in Yellowknife, most notably the YWCA’s Rockhill Apartments and the Bailey House for men run by the Salvation Army. There’s also...

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 5th Session (day 51)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister, I think. As Mrs. Groenewegen has said once or twice, it would be nice if you just sort of said, yeah, that’s a good idea, we’ll look into it. I heard the Minister say that he’d like to sit down and talk. Absolutely. I’m going to ask him if he would commit to meet with me to talk about this idea so that we can try and find some sort of a solution. I would also like to ask the Minister if he would commit to work with other departments within the government to find the right funding for NGOs so that the people within transitional housing don’t have...

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 5th Session (day 51)

Thanks to the Minister for that commitment. I look forward to that. Further on in his remarks, Mr. Polakoff mentioned that NGOs can provide a good source of support in terms of administering things like transitional housing. I’d like to ask the Minister, and hopefully he has at least some of this information, but under what program could the Housing Corporation provide operational funds to NGOs who provide transitional housing, new programs, existing programs, programs from another department? Any information would be helpful. Thank you.

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 5th Session (day 51)

The people in Yellowknife’s transition housing come from all over the Northwest Territories. Many are trying to rebuild and regroup after troubles in their lives. I use Yellowknife examples because it’s my community, but I know there are people in other communities who also cannot afford to eat and pay market rent.

Samuel Johnson once said that a decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization. I hope to hear some civilized answers from the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation during oral questions.

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 5th Session (day 50)

I didn’t hear an answer to the question there. If a department brings forward a proposal, there must have been some basis on which a decision is made to go on one side or the other. I didn’t hear an answer as to what basis that decision was made on.

I’d like to know also from the Premier, when this decision was being considered, was there an evaluation of the risk to the project, for instance, cost overruns, if the project went ahead to construction without approval of bridge design?