Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are addressed to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Some years ago, Volunteer NWT was established. It’s, unfortunately, an organization which is now defunct. When the federal funding which we received to establish the organization went the way of the dodo birds, so, unfortunately, did the organization because GNWT did not follow through and replace the funding.
The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs held a Volunteer Summit last March and published a report in September of 2009. The intent of that report apparently was to gather input for use in revising the Volunteer Support Initiative Action Plan. We received correspondence in September of 2009 that indicated that a revised action plan would be out for consultation in the winter of 2010. Well, I believe, Mr. Speaker, that winter is over and I would like to ask the Minister when we can expect a revised volunteer support initiative action plan. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct; we were out consulting on a new initiative. I can assure the Member that the new Volunteer Support Initiative will be completed by this fall. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Minister for that information. I guess better late than never. I feel, and I think many Members on this side of the House agree, that volunteers are the backbone of our communities and, in our view, the government should be providing strong support, both moral support and financial support, to enable our volunteers. In the last couple of years that I have been here, we have talked about multi-year funding for NGOs, non-government organizations, to ensure better treatment with them, better communications and operations between government and NGOs. I know a program manager guide has been done, but I know there was also another document that was presumably being worked on that wasn’t just for GNWT employees but was for NGOs to put some parameters in place. I would like to ask the Minister how close to a usable workable document are we, one that is comprehensive and guides the dealings of NGOs with government and government with NGOs. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I will consult with the appropriate department and get a timeline as to the concerns that the Member is raising and communicate those back to her. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Minister for that commitment. I will look forward to that. I would ask the Minister to copy other Members because I believe that everybody is interested in this document which is presumably coming.
The Minister talked about a report being available in the fall. I know in May of this year we received another letter from the Minister which talked about Volunteer Support Initiative consultations which apparently are going to be ongoing in the next couple of months, I guess. The letter talked about some of the focus of the questions for these consultations as being promotion of volunteers, recognition of volunteers. I found the questions quite superficial. I don’t feel that they are going to get to the real needs of our volunteers and the support that they need. I would like to know if the Minister can advise in terms of these consultations. We are supposed to have a revised plan, but what is the focus? What is the goal of these consultations coming up? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we are hoping to develop an updated NWT Volunteer Support Initiative and use this as an opportunity to listen to the organizations out there and see what is the best way that we can support our volunteer sector. We do provide some support right now to some of the volunteer groups, but we are hoping to enhance or expand on this program through questions there. We are looking at this as an opportunity as we did with the Volunteer Summit using that as an opportunity to listen to those that are most affected by this. We took some of that information and took the next step. We are hoping to use this as a document to expand on the funding if the need is there, which I think we all believe the need is there, so that is our plan. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am really glad to hear the Minister say that we are going to expand the funding. That is great. I take that commitment. I look forward to that in the 2011-12 Business Plans. In order to effect any real change, I think that we have to go beyond sort of the questions that are out in this round of consultations. We have to get deeper into sort of the meat of the matter. I would like to know from the Minister whether or not there will be consideration within the government to reorganize it so that all the volunteer initiatives, all the volunteer programs fall under one department; preferably, in my view, the Executive. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we will have that discussion with the Executive. If Members and the public feel that this is the proper place to have the volunteer initiative, then that is a discussion that we will have to have. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
