Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Executive. They are on the voluntary sector. I’d like to start by just quickly looking at our record during the life of our term. The first thing we did was cut out the Volunteer Support Initiative. Now we’ve dropped the multi-year funding for those providing critical services; that seems to be on hold. We’ve continually refused to install an office of capacity building in the Department of Executive, as the sector has called for repeatedly at committee and by Members. We’ve established a modest Stabilization Fund which is directed by the Premier, not by the voluntary sector, to where the government sees the need, not where the voluntary sector sees the need.
This is to me one of the biggest areas of our failure by this government and I’d like to ask what the Premier is going to do to pull us out of the fire and at least let us walk away without hanging our heads in shame here.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member may hang his head in shame but quite clearly the Government of the Northwest Territories had some difficult choices to make around both the volunteer sector, which is appropriately held in Municipal and Community Affairs, and the non-government organizations that we work with through Executive. The Member has discussed in contribution funding we’ve put in place for stabilization. Quite clearly, we have a difference of opinion on the volunteer sector. Within Executive we deal with those NGOs, as we call them, non-government organizations that we contract services for and we’ve been trying to come up with a program that works for those groups but at the same time benefits us as the Government of the Northwest Territories. We’ve been trying to do it within our existing resources and trying to use our own systems more effectively and efficiently.
Society, really, is represented by a delicate balance between government, the marketplace and civil society, which includes the voluntary sector and requires strength in all three. I have no doubt that the government listens to itself and I can testify that we don’t dictate the market. When will the Minister start listening to the voluntary sector and the civil society when they’re speaking out on this issue and making demands that are clear and consistent like multi-year funding and establishing an office of capacity in the Executive?
We do have multi-year funding processes in place. Some organizations, again non-government organizations, as we’ve heard from the Minister of Health and Social Services are doing their review of how they would continue with that funding process. Clearly we do have multi-year funding in place.
I could have sworn I heard a Member of the Cabinet say that was on hold. Repeatedly say that, in fact. I’d like to point out that these things have been continually raised. The Premier or Minister of Executive continually deflects things by saying this is a responsibility of MACA. I admit MACA does have some pretty modest voluntary sector programs in the area of sports and so on. In the area where we have voluntary work on critical services like mental health, harbour from family violence, accountability on behalf of the land, and so on, these are served by many other departments. There’s a clear role for the Department of Executive and again there’s been a clear call for establishing an office in the Department of Executive for capacity building. Will the Minister get this done by the end of this term?
Well, the Member knows that the Department of Executive budget is up in front of committee later on today and we can go through that detail at that time.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Indeed, we can talk about that later. It seems to be typical to procrastinate on this request. If it’s lack of commitment that is going to make this not done, if it’s going to prevent this bit from being done during the life of this Assembly, will the Premier at least establish this on the transition document as a priority for the 17th Assembly?
The simple fact is that I’ve said many times in this House, and the Member may call it procrastinating, but I’ve talked about the fact that if it’s the will of this Assembly when we do initiatives, then we’ll look at how we put them in place. The transition documents we would be working on together. If it’s the will of the Assembly, we’ll be prepared to look at that.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
