Wendy Bisaro

We have an offer of assistance from community partners to develop an anti-poverty strategy and it’s a great opportunity that must not be ignored. We have organizations concerned for the welfare of NWT residents willing to donate their labour and advice and considerable experience to this project, but we must engage them in a meaningful manner. They want to work, not advise, and we have to take advantage of that.

I will have questions for the Premier at the appropriate time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is my point, that we do not have a definition and there are many across the country. I don’t believe that we can develop a definition by discussion. I would like to ask the Premier again if we could have a working group to identify a definition of poverty first and then develop a discussion paper to try and figure out the strategy. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, that is good to hear. I am really pleased. The goal is to have something by the end of this Assembly. That is great. I do want to reiterate that I feel we have, particularly through the Anti-Poverty Alliance partners, a group of volunteers that are ready to work. I am a little concerned by sort of the process that the Premier is describing that we are going to be advising. We are going to be developing a paper. We are going to be consulting. We are going to be measuring, providing direction and then maybe implementing. It seems to be a very long process and I think we are making...

I’m really trying to get some timing and some idea of when we might get progress.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier mentioned in his statement that the government will establish an advisory committee and I’d like to ask the Premier whether this committee will only advise or if we will actually be using the people who volunteer for this group to actually do some work for us and to speed things up. Thank you.

I thank the Premier for that. I guess I would have to say that it is the Anti-Poverty Alliance that initiated this and Members simply accelerated the process to a certain extent. So I would hope that the Premier is going to get in touch with the Anti-Poverty Alliance. That was the request they put forward way back in December, after all. I sense that in some cases developing this strategy may not be considered a high priority, but there are, as has been noted, many reports which show the correlation between poverty and living conditions. So I’d like to know from the Premier, he talks about...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess I found the timing of the Premier’s statement today rather interesting. I get the impression that the pressure is on, Mr. Speaker, because we have a resolution passed by the NWT Association of Communities and recently the Premier, the chair of the Standing Committee on Social Programs and the chair of the Caucus were all recipients of not one but two congratulatory letters from two Canada-wide anti-poverty organizations.

One of the organizations said in the letter, the NWT is the first of the Canadian territories to prioritize anti-poverty and as such...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not sure if I should thank the Premier or chastise him for stealing my statement today.

Just before Christmas a group of concerned, socially conscientious organizations came to the Legislative Assembly and gave us all a Christmas present. It was a gift of 14 reports detailing the causes and effects of poverty. In addition to their presentation, the group had but one request and, to quote them, “All we want for Christmas is an end to poverty.”

Just this past weekend the NWT Association of Communities passed a resolution which urges the GNWT to proceed with the...

Mr. Speaker, I do agree that we definitely will need resources to probably do some of this work, but I would hope that we are not going to not do the work because we are worried about getting the money. One of the things that the Anti-Poverty Alliance group suggested was that the very first thing we needed to do was to develop a definition of poverty. We do not have one. I guess I would like to ask the Premier how we can develop a discussion paper if we don’t first develop a definition of poverty. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I spoke earlier about the statement by the Premier. You caught me off guard; I have to find my notes. I wanted to follow up with the Premier on the intent of the advisory committee and the work that is going to be done relative to an anti-poverty strategy. I guess I was remiss in my initial remarks in not congratulating the Premier for his statement and for actually bringing forward that we are going to finally be doing something. I would like to express my appreciation and I think the appreciation of the Anti-Poverty Alliance for that. I would like to put a bit more of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Premier. I apologize if I got his blood rushing to his head, but I really am trying to....

---Laughter