Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to talk a little bit today about the concentration of specialized services in Yellowknife, when there are other communities outside of Yellowknife which are large enough and have great enough need to have some capital infrastructure to address some of these things.
In Yellowknife we have Betty House, Bailey House, the new dementia facility, a complex that completely accommodates people who require barrier-free access; a whole complex downtown Yellowknife for people who have physical disabilities who require barrier-free access. We have women’s shelters, we have all kinds of services here. These services and this infrastructure obviously came about as a result of a very organized and concerted effort on the part of organizations, NGOs, volunteers, fundraisers, which you have a lot to draw on here in Yellowknife. There are a lot of very community-minded people in Yellowknife and I believe that these facilities have come on stream as a result of those efforts.
But we have communities outside of Yellowknife. We don’t want to have to tell our people that if they want these services, move to Yellowknife. We have homelessness in Hay River as well.
I’d like to ask the Premier how we get our proposals for infrastructure on the table. Do we need to form community groups to put together proposals to appeal to the government for the millions of dollars that they get here in Yellowknife? What is our access? What is our avenue to this kind of support? We do need these and we can sustain these facilities outside of the capital.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re open to receiving any proposals that are brought forward by volunteers and non-government organizations and we would review them. In this particular case referencing Betty House, our government is only one contributor and generally the operator of the facility will be a non-government organization. In this case we found a way through the Building Canada Economic Action Plan to assist. I think in every instance we would try to find a way to assist.
If we were to take the population of Hay River and the population of Yellowknife and also examine the need for something like a homeless shelter in Hay River, probably on a ratio on population even, you could probably get a house – a smaller house than Betty House or Bailey House – in a community like Hay River or Fort Smith probably for $500,000 or $600,000. I want to take a clear message back to my constituents in Hay River. If we form a volunteer organization in Hay River that can identify the need, and identify a location and we fill out a proposal, is this government willing to entertain a similar facility in Hay River on a smaller scale?
Recognizing that the government contribution to Betty House is only a small portion, we would be prepared to entertain something on a similar basis percentage wise, I’m sure.
