Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. I would like to ask him questions about the 2015 NGO stabilization funding. The Non-Government Organization Stabilization Fund was established, I think, about two or three years ago now, three years, I think, and it’s been quite successful. When it was initially established there were some fairly large growing pains. Organizations had a tough time getting information. They had a very tough time in getting the money in a timely manner. Over the years, when it was with the Department of the Executive, things improved greatly.
As Members know, this was transferred to the Department of MACA in this fiscal year and I’ve learned just recently that the call has gone out. It was received on June 2nd by the non-government organizations and the turnaround time is just over two weeks.
So, Mr. Speaker, my first question in looking at the policy that sits on MACA’s website, it’s under Applications, number 4. It states: “A call for applications will be issued yearly. The call will be issued before May 31st each year. The application period will be at least three weeks and no more than five weeks long.”
So I’d like to ask the Minister how it is that the information on the 2015 fund went out on June 2nd and how the turnaround period is less than three weeks. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister of Lands, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will commit to the Member that I will follow up on that. I appreciate her bringing it to my attention. The fact that she’s able to do that proves that we’re very capable of working together quite closely. So I will follow up on that and share it with the Member. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister for the commitment; however, it doesn’t really tell me much.
Is the Minister going to correct the time period for applications? Right now it’s less than three weeks. NGOs have a very difficult time putting things together. They’re not usually full-time people working with the organization, so I’m asking the Minister, in looking into it, will he commit to extend it to the three-week time period which is set in his policy? Thank you.
If it’s set in a policy, and there was a bit of confusion there, once I review that and the policy says it’s supposed to be a certain time period, I will correct it. Thank you.
I’d like to thank the Minister. I think the NGOs would certainly look forward to that correction. So I would just ask the Minister, will he advise Members as well as NGOs when he makes that decision? Thank you.
This is a bit of a learning curve for our folks over at the department, too, because NGOs we just received, I think, on April 1st of this year, so we’re just learning this as we go along. So, I will commit to the Member that I will inform everyone involved when the decision is made. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Member for Hay River South, Mr. Bouchard.
