Wendy Bisaro

That is, unfortunately, the answer I expected from the Minister. I appreciate that there is a focus on youth, but I have to remind all of us, the Minister particularly, youth become adults, and adults become seniors and elders. We need to keep them active. It has been stated earlier by another Member that active seniors reduce our hospital and medical care costs.

I think the Minister said that he might look into providing funding for seniors if this is something which is going to be ongoing. It has been ongoing for about four or five games now. What will the Minister do to find the $50,000 to...

I thank each of my colleagues. The rest of the $300,000 was garnered through fundraising and individual athletes’ personal contributions. I expect the Minister of MACA will follow the lead of the Minister of Health and Social Services and also refuse the request for funding from these athletes. If that is the case, and no one department can bear this huge burden, then maybe the Ministers of MACA, ITI, Health and Social Services plus the Minister responsible for Seniors and the Minister responsible for sport, these five can split the $50,000 and ante up $10,000 each.

Last week the Minister of...

And to quote from an e-mail from an elder that I have recently received, she said, “To avoid funding the attendance of seniors at the Canada 55-plus Games could be interpreted as blatant age discrimination.”

On Monday I spoke about the value of recreation and physical activity in our daily life. Research shows that for seniors in particular, physical activity improves and maintains one’s health.

We’re fortunate to have many active seniors and elders in our communities. They’re active because they’re healthy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I appreciate that the department is doing things. What the department is doing is long term and it’s not going to assist us right now in increasing the percentage of persons with disabilities in our workforce.

I talked yesterday about priority lists. I’d like to ask the Minister what priority does he put on the increasing of persons with disabilities in our workforce. Thank you.

I understand that change takes a while for it to be processed. It’s good to hear that we have at least two more people hired who are persons with disabilities, but that still doesn’t bring our percentage to any kind of a limit that is representative of our workforce.

In June of 2009 the Minister made a statement and he talked about the development of a recruitment strategy as a long-term goal, and this is a recruitment strategy for persons with disabilities. The percentage of persons with disabilities in the GNWT workforce has been at about .4 percent for quite a number of years. I’d like to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is no secret that NWT communities are diverse. They are small, medium and large. They are on the road system and not on the road system. They follow the traditional economy, the modern economy, and sometimes both. Providing services to our communities is a serious challenge for the GNWT given this diversity. It is particularly difficult to ensure that the same services are available in each of our 33 communities.

My colleagues on this side of the House have often spoken to our failure in that regard. But do we, as a government, really know what level of programs and...

I thank the Minister for the answer and I understand that, again, as I say, I know that change takes time and I guess to the Minister’s comment that I’d have a problem with self-identification, I do, but I think perhaps we’re on opposite sides of the fence on what the problem may be. If we look at .4 percent of our workforce as being persons with disabilities and if we consider that it is the policy of this government that our workforce should represent our general population, we should, therefore, have about 15 percent of our workforce be persons with disabilities. So the Minister says we’ve...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to address my questions to the Minister of Human Resources. I’d like to follow up on his statement from yesterday and some of the questions that I asked the Minister yesterday. In our exchange, I referenced the Employability Working Group and asked the Minister what the group had accomplished. In the results that he mentioned to me, he mentioned a number of things. One of them was that the department has consulted with a number of other different jurisdictions; another one was that they have implemented some sensitivity training. I’d like to know from the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I could do a Member’s statement to the Minister’s reference to self-identification, so I guess I don’t have time for that right now.

I’d like to know from the Minister, though, I don’t think I heard in any of his answers that there will be any valuation of the priority list, that there will be a look at those two priority lists to, one, bring them together so that they actually match and people are listed in the same priority for each of them and to possibly change the priorities of various people within the Affirmative Action Policy. Is that possible? Thank you.

I’m not quite sure; the Minister said an affirmative action plan. I don’t know if he meant plan or policy, but if there is a review going on, how encompassing is this review, what are the terms of reference of this review and when might we expect it? Thank you.