Kieron Testart

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to follow-up with some questions about the Metis health benefits. I think my colleague covered the funding aspects and the legal requirement to move on it quite well. I’ve heard there’s a concern from some people that the quality of prospective benefits that the federal government’s now obliged to offer won’t be of the same quality that we currently provide. I guess my question is, will we be using any incoming funding to… Will we lapse our program and just take the new federal program or will we find some way to maintain the benefits? Can we give people...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that committee report progress.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister for his answer. I appreciate his efforts on this. I think as the Minister responsible for Youth, we do need to do a great deal of youth outreach, moving forward, in the territory to combat some of these very high statistics we have in the North for violence, addictions, and also to make vulnerable communities feel safe. Could the Minister commit to spending some of his time as Minister responsible for Youth to address this with a strategy or an action plan or some form of tangible measure? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, that’s correct. The mental health and addictions contribution in the amount of $450,000, and it’s described as “funding to support organizations in the delivery of mental health and additions programming.” I note that it is in the 201415 Actuals. It was $277,000. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Minister’s department is also responsible for a great deal of heritage funding and certainly LGBTQ history is a large part of our heritage going back to Bud Orange and the Klippert case. We have great festivals here, and this will be fifth year of Pride NWT, proving yet again that the LGBTQ community is very much integrated into our community. Can the Minister speak to if some of those resources can be made available and if they are currently being done so?

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the Minister. I am interested in kind of that deeper dig into seeing the… I didn’t hear a date on when we can expect the work to be completed. I know these things take time, but I can only assume that the department has a timeline it’s working on; it’s not just an infinite date. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. We must continue embracing our fellow Northerners for it is love that makes us stronger; it is love borne from our diversity and borne of our love of freedom. We must reflect our unique identify in our schools, in our communities, and in all aspects of public life. As leaders of this government what we can do is to celebrate our diversity and speak out against hate whenever we see it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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Thank you, Mr. Chair. The evaluation, can the Minister speak briefly about the evaluation criteria and whether or not we’re going to clients on their experiences with the program and the successes of the program directly and how they had an effect on clients’ lives in treating some of these issues? I appreciate that it’s a success in terms of rolling the funding out and getting the programs offered, but I’m looking to see if the department is taking a very critical eye to how effective these programs are and then can share those successes with our own Indigenous governments and governments...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I note that under contributions we find the on-the-land healing fund. That’s at $1 million. I’m more familiar with the ontheland programs through the Department of Justice, but I know there are some difficulties with rolling those programs out. What is the department’s experience with the on-the-land healing fund? Is most of that money accessed and spent on these programs? How successful are those programs, based on feedback from clients? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the government has brought its budget for the coming year. I am pleased to see it is not in fact an austerity budget, rather is one of status quo. It balances reductions with new spending in an effort to meet the shared priorities of both sides of this House. While I’m pleased with this outcome, I cannot say the same for the efforts undertaken by the leadership of the Premier and Cabinet to communicate these spending measures. In fact, I do not believe that any reasonable Northerner would have believed in the months leading up to the introduction of the...