Robert Hawkins

Mr. Speaker, thank you. To be clear then, the Minister is saying in this House that she won’t support a multi-year agreement to the NWT Seniors’ Society which has an excellent proven track record and are able to fulfill all requirements spelled out in the agreements with the Department of Health and Social Services. Is that what the Minister is saying or is she intending to review the possibility of them having a multi-year agreement?

Any multi-year agreement does not put any funding situation into stone. It certainly recognizes there are changes in government and, therefore, there would be a need to change the agreement to reflect the circumstances, perhaps even the fiscal circumstances the government is under on that day. What stops the Minister specifically from funding a multi-year agreement with the NWT Seniors’ Society, recognizing there may be special clauses to recognize fiscal circumstances the territorial government is in and they may have to re-evaluate? At the end of the day, you could still sign a multi-year...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The NWT Seniors’ Society has worked with the Department of Health and Social Services for over 15 years to ensure dignity, independence, participation, security and fairness for seniors across the NWT. As the population of the Northwest Territories ages, the NWT Seniors’ Society is an increasingly important resource for elders across the NWT. It is the only volunteer agency representing the individual and collective interest of all seniors in the NWT.

Its first multi-year funding agreement with Health and Social Services was in 2006 to 2010 and helped the NWT Seniors’...

Thank you. Many good people come to the North to help contribute and what we’re finding is we’ve got engineers, teachers, even veterinarians who are stuck in these entry jobs and not getting the access to tap into their potential of what they could provide and contribute to the North, and I think they’d add to the fabric of who we are. Would the Minister commit to working with the nominee office to ensure that they expand both public education and service support to this type of community? That way when we do get them here, they can work and ensure that they’re being productive in the way many...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In listening to Mr. Bromley’s question, it ironically was quite close to a matter I dealt with this morning. I had a constituent who came to my office from I would define an African community, and they talked about how difficult it is and challenging here in Yellowknife when we have a Nominee Program and broader, larger efforts to attract new immigrants to the North, but they find that the service levels are quite low. Many of them have said that they’ve got approximately in the range of 200 people here from the African community, but many of them have left their...

On one hand the Minister says she supports this, but then on the other and she says she doesn’t. Mr. Speaker, administratively, would the Minister agree that it makes a lot more sense to have multi-year agreements in place rather than doing the same work year after year? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about multi-year agreements and I highlighted the one between the NWT Seniors’ Society and the Department of Health and Social Services. Mr. Speaker, multi-year agreements certainly outline and develop a stabilized funding source and it takes significant stress off NGOs, which should be doing the work that they always intend to rather than filling out long, protracted agreements year after year.

Under Minister Miltenberger, at the time, it was a great step forward for NGOs, and I had hoped that it would have been the hallmark...

I look forward to that. Thank you for that commitment. On that same vein, does the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, through the early childhood development programming -- and I would like to boldly call it initiative because it’s very important that we stand behind these things -- supply or help fund resources that look at physiotherapy, speech and language pathology, things along those types of lines? Now, they’re slightly different when I referred to it earlier. I’m getting sort of into the nuts and bolts of actual accredited organizations. Sorry, accredited skills. My...

I’m not sure that the average person knows that there’s fluoridation in the particular water. I think it’s sort of an old-school approach that you either assume, or it is or it isn’t in water. How often does the chief medical officer review the results of the particular pros and cons of the value of fluoridation that is out there? Again, I’m not talking about the municipality managing or putting it into their system. I’m talking about the quality and public safety.

Early childhood development is a very important issue within the riding and certainly with myself. I just want to make sure that we’re providing the right type of support. I often hear concerns about not receiving enough funding support when it comes to being able to address issues such as speech and language as well as behaviour, which I would think falls directly on the Department of Education when you’re funding these organizations. Does the department provide that type of service? I know the deputy minister had alluded, or I should say quite directly pointed out that they provide language...