Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If she is going to purchase a house without the assistance of the Housing Corporation, then she would be able to do that on her own. I am not sure where it’s coming from. If you go to the bank for financing, then you really have no dealing with the Housing Corporation unless it is a Housing Corporation unit that she is looking to buy. I need to get the information clarified with the Member before I can respond properly to it. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, clarification I will give the Minister is that this lady wants to purchase a house; however, due to some complexities, I guess, within the policies of the Housing Corporation, it will take months to purchase this house. She is doing it all on her own, yet it seems like the Housing Corporation has a whole bunch of policies that speak of more frustrating for her in terms of purchasing this unit. Get it off their inventory so that they can build another unit that they would allocate to other people in the community. It is just very tiring for this person.
Mr. Speaker, if I am to understand the Member, he is talking that this lady wants to buy a house on their own and it sounds like it is a public housing unit that she is looking to buy. Okay, that has something to do with the Housing Corporation. I would have to follow up with the Member and get particular details. I know we do have a policy where we are trying to rid ourselves of some public housing units. As we bring replacement units on, we are trying to reduce our stock. If we can have people out there that are looking to buy their public housing units, then it is something that we will look at. I will get the particulars from the Member and I will assure him that I will follow up on it. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, can the Minister advise the Members in this House what he is going to do to ensure that the sale of public housing units can occur in a timely manner within the communities?
Mr. Speaker, as I said before, we are always willing to look at the option of selling public housing units. However, we have to be sure that we are not depleting our stock in that community where we are unable to provide public housing to those that are in need. If there is an excess of public housing units or we are bringing in replacement units, then this is something that we will look at. If we are doing that, then sales should go through as quickly as possible. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had been working with the Minister’s office on this particular subject. There are probably other ones that fall into this category. I want to ask the Minister in terms of speeding up the process. It seems like this person, in the eyes of the community, is very simple. You have a public unit house. They want to buy it. The Minister has encouraged people. How quickly can this person buy this unit? It certainly would save a lot of grief for the family and I think this could be done as quickly as possible. I will work with the Minister. I want to ask the Minister if we could do this within a month or so.
Mr. Speaker, I will follow up with the Member and we will see how... I will get the particular details of the situation and we will see if we are in a position to speed it up, because it is our goal to get folks out of public housing and into their own units. If this is one way we can do it, I will commit to working with the Member to see if we can make this happen. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are directed to the Minister of Health and Social Services. I know I have raised this issue in the House before in regards to the area of orthodontic services in the Inuvik region. There was supposed to be a contract let, yet, Mr. Speaker, I am still receiving phone calls from parents in regards to the amount of time it is taking for their children to be seen in regards to this important service. I would like to ask the Minister exactly why is it taking so long to get this position filled and, more importantly, why are parents having to wait months on end and nothing seems to be happening? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for the question. The Member is right; we have had some delayed services in the Beaufort-Delta region due to a lack of contract; well, the provider. The Beaufort-Delta authority was able to sign the contract in August but the contractor was not able to begin work until November. There is a backlog list of patients that need to be seen. I will undertake to look at where we are with this and I hope to be able to report that they are going to begin delivering the services now that it is November. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, again, there is a very long backlog in regards to this. There are a lot of people waiting. I heard from a lot of constituents in the three communities I represent. There have been people waiting for almost a year and a half and still haven’t received this service. Is there a possibility that different health authorities, whoever can assist the Inuvik region through this transition and get some of these patients into the system either in Yellowknife or elsewhere so that we can try to bring some remedy to the situation and shorten the waiting list that people are waiting for the service?
Mr. Speaker, this is a service being provided by the federal government under NIHB. We assist in the process in terms of providing space and helping them with the administrative procedure. I agree that this is an important service. I will get a complete update on when the service will start, how many people are on the waiting list and what options they are looking at to speed up the process, including what the Member has suggested. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, again, it will be nice if the Department of Health and Social Services, the Inuvik Regional Health Board could maybe put out a public advisory letting the people know what the status of the situation is so that they can stop calling our MLAs and also get the information to the people that require that. I would like to ask the Minister if they can also notify the public on the status of the situation and also work with those families and parents to deal with this matter. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, yes, I would ask them to publicly advertise and update the public as to where that program is. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier this year I was working with the Municipality of Fort Liard. Unfortunately, they had lost a member in the river and they had quite a few expenses for search and rescue. I understand it is under the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs. We do have a fund to assist with search and rescues. I would like to ask the Minister to tell me a little bit about the program. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct; we have a contribution for community-organized searches that may provide contributions to support community-organized search for missing persons. If we go into the definitions -- and I am going to share this with the Member -- it talks about a public search that needs to be conducted by the RCMP and this has to fit into that area. So I’d be willing to provide some of this information to the Member.
In this case, the municipality, actually the Acho Dene Koe of Fort Liard did actually put in a request to access these funds because they expended quite a bit of money, and I certainly supported that. I sent in a memo to the Minister and it was denied. I’d like to know how does a community access that fund that’s sorely needed, especially when it calls on the resources of communities, families, friends, et cetera. Thank you.
The contribution funding is typically provided for a community-organized search of a prolonged length and duration, and the public search by the RCMP has concluded and the community government has incurred expenses related to the community-organized search. However, we did have, I believe, a couple of requests. I’m not quite sure of the amount of the expenses. I don’t think I’ve seen that number personally yet. So I think it was one of the reasons that it was declined, because we had had a couple of requests come from the community of Fort Liard. Thank you.
I certainly support the cause of the ADK Band membership to submit their bills of $10,000. Is the Minister willing to review this particular request once again? Thank you.
I’ll commit to the Member that I’d be willing to have a look at this. Again, I mentioned, and maybe it’s a discussion that he and I need to have, but we did receive a couple of requests from the community of Fort Liard. But I will commit to the Member that I’ll look at the expenses that they may have incurred there, if they can substantiate them and if it’s something that we need to sit down and discuss. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I understand that some of the parameters are that the contributions are to the officially recognized municipalities, the hamlet or whatever, but we have had instances in the past three or four years where we did provide contributions over to the band councils, because they’re the ones, it’s their membership, they’re the ones that expend the most money there, Mr. Speaker, and I’d like to ask the Minister if that will be considered as well. Thank you.
We will consider that. We also have to be sure that as far as community searches go, if we get a couple of applications for reimbursement from the community, then it’s unfair to one group or the other if we approve one or the other. So I would have to review the whole situation and see exactly what happened in the situation in Fort Liard and I’ll communicate with the Member and then hopefully we can get a resolution out of this. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Further to my Return to Written Question 15-16(5), I wish to table the following three documents entitled Core Need by Size of Household, Winter 2009; Senior Households in Core Need by Community, 2009; Core Need for Single Member Households Less than 60 Years of Age, Winter 2009. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Minister, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Further to the Premier’s Return to Written Question 16-16(5), I wish to table the following document entitled Cost of Devolution Negotiations, Actual Expenditures.
Also, I would like to table the following document entitled Reports Respecting Benefits Paid to Ministers under the Ministerial Benefits Policy for the Fiscal Year Ending March 31, 2010. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Minister responsible for Human Resources, Mr. Bob McLeod.
Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document entitled 2009 Public Service Annual Report. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Pursuant to Section 40.23.(2) of the Public Service Act, I wish to table the Annual Report of the Equal Pay Commissioner for the Northwest Territories for the period July 1, 2009, to June 30, 2010.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
WHEREAS people with post-secondary education are six times more likely to have employment, and completing post-secondary education dramatically increases the lifetime prospects of having well-paid, stable employment;
AND WHEREAS post-secondary education programs require secondary school graduates to have earned specific course credits for entry to programs;
AND WHEREAS students may not learn or realize early enough that they are not taking the courses needed for specific post-secondary programs;
AND WHEREAS students who are lacking courses required for entry to specific education programs must take upgrading courses if they are to be accepted into their chosen programs;
AND WHEREAS student financial assistance is available to attend post-secondary educational programs and for certain intake programs providing upgrading for entry to a limited number of post-secondary programs;
AND WHEREAS some students in some programs are able to access other territorial and federal funding programs to support their upgrading, such as Income Support and Employment Insurance;
AND WHEREAS the lack of student financial assistance to take secondary school upgrading programs is preventing students who want to pursue higher education from earning required credits;
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Motion is on the floor, motion is in order. To the motion. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This motion is partly in response to the results of our educational programs, which have created a situation where we have students graduating with a diploma which does not prepare them for the post-secondary education that they wish to take on. Unfortunately, when I went to school we had vocational and matriculation diplomas and it was very clear what they prepared you for in terms of post-secondary. Today we don’t have that.
I know the Minister is aware of this and is working with committees and others, his staff, to make sure that we plug that hole, but in the meantime we have created a bolus of people of various ages now that have these deficient Grade 12 diplomas. There is a federal program UCEP, which is available for students to help with their upgrading, but it’s insufficient for the demand that has been created, and it’s only applicable to status Indians and Inuit under the DIAND program.
There is overwhelming evidence, Mr. Speaker, that investing in education pays big dividends. We’re facing issues of poverty and unemployment and participation in society. These will all be benefited and resolved through this action. I look forward to any other comments, but I will be supporting this motion, obviously, and will be requesting a recorded vote.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. To the motion. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, will be supporting this motion. I’d like to thank Mr. Bromley for bringing it to the floor.
The statistics show, the numbers show that students who take on a career by advancing their educational knowledge, greatly contribute to the Northwest Territories and the communities. These educational programs that we offer in secondary institutions will certainly be busier if we had the proper funding for students to take advantage of upgrading their skills and educational knowledge by having them being supported through Student Financial Assistance.
As Mr. Bromley has indicated, there is a federal program under the UCEP program that’s only geared for Dene Treaty Indians or Inuit and certainly cuts out the aboriginal people. Sorry; the Metis people who have to once again fight and scrape and ask for equal rights as any other aboriginal people in Canada.
The upgrading courses that are now being chosen in the communities, a lot of our Grade 12 students who are leaving high school have to take upgrading programs. Right now they are not being funded or supported. The only program I know of that has support is called the Access Program, which there are four programs in the North that students can take funding.
I wanted to ask the Minister in terms of this motion here to see that there is a strong emphasis to the student financial services to support Grade 12 and give the students a chance in their career, let them know we are there for them, and when we have students graduating from Grade 12, we know that for certain they can go to a post-secondary institution. Right now the joke is that once you’re finished Grade 12, make room for Aurora College because you’re going to do your two years to get into an access program.
We are severely lacking any type of quality standards of education in the North and it’s certainly shown by having a motion like this on the table to support our students. This is an indication as to where our education in the Northwest Territories is.
