Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wondered, then, on what basis was the increase to community government funding based. The increase that’s in this budget, I presume? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am frowning because I don’t really understand how bringing early childhood children into the schools is going to deal with the enrolment issue, but that is another issue. I just would like to have the Minister confirm for me, he mentioned that he wants to hear from various school board authorities and I presume also operators of daycares and child cares. Does that mean that he is open at this point to comments from these particular groups, agencies and individuals? Thank you.

Thanks for the explanation. I guess we have to agree to disagree. I’m not so sure that telling people to go to a website to find out what funding is available is the best way to make sure that the money gets where we want it to go.

I would like to ask the Minister why we have funding for youth corps in two different places in this particular budget. It’s on page 6-34 for $825,000, and it’s again on page 6-39 for $500,000. The descriptions are exactly the same. What’s the difference between these two? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Minister. I appreciate that it is preliminary and that it is probably in discussion stages, but if I can get a little bit more information. Early childhood can span a fairly large number of years. Is the Minister talking about early childhood such as pre-kindergarten or are we talking about early childhood such as from zero to five years of age? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That leads me right into a question with regard to Sport North who has indicated over the years that they’re not being adequately funded to manage the trials and transfer, whatever, the whole dealing with athletes in and around Arctic Winter Games; regional trials, territorial trials and then taking the kids to the games. So I would like to ask the Minister has he not ever heard that Sport North has difficulties in funding those trials? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I guess to clarify, I am looking for an operational audit and also a financial audit. I think, at this point, what I am looking for, and I think some other Members are as well, is to know how much we spent to date, how much we intend to spend to complete this project, because I think there are a lot of hidden costs which aren’t out there. I guess, at this point, I would say yes, I would like a full-blown operational and financial audit when the project is done, but within the near term I would like to see a compilation of all the costs that we...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Maybe I’m jumping ahead of you, but underneath the grants under recreation contributions to the Council of Sport and Recreation Partners, I note that stayed at the same level funding for at least two years; well, three years pretty much. I don’t have any further back than that, but I wonder if the Minister could advise whether or not if this organization is looking at any kind of cost of living increase for this organization. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister for the answer. I guess it begs the question, then, if we did have that kind of fairly large involvement in the project, if we were doing that kind of monitoring, it is no secret that this project has run into difficulties. We had problems with the contractor. We have had problems with the corporation and their management of the project. Why then did we have such great difficulties? Why are we in the situation we are in at this point? Thank you.

I’m sorry; maybe I wasn’t clear to the Minister. I was actually referencing the organization of SRC and the various groups that fall underneath it outside of games. I know that the games actually work reasonably well. At one point I had understood there was going to be an evaluation of the SRC and how well it was working and the groups within it and so on. Is that on the radar anywhere?

Two, this Assembly must set in place protocols to guide Executive Council actions that will inhibit major decisions being made in the months preceding an election. We have to shut the door on the opportunity for an Executive Council in the waning days of an Assembly to enter into any major agreement such as the one signed off with the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation.

We the 16th Assembly have been saddled with the travesty that is the Deh Cho Bridge, but it must never be allowed to happen this way again.