Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Department of Health and Social Services lead the development of TSLGBTQIPA+ guidelines for emergency shelters, transitional housing, and nonprofit organizations providing housing and homelessness prevention supports by the 20232024 fiscal year. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. To the motion. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Like the previous motion, this one is very important, and it does need to be addressed in that this is a marginalized group of people that are not always even going to be able to access or feel comfortable accessing traditional supports that might be in place. You know, I have heard as well from people that were renting places or were about to sign leases and things and then made the sort of innocuous comment of, as woman, my wife will be coming, and then finding out all of a sudden they no longer have that lease and that there really is still a degree of prejudice happening in our rental market and particularly because there is no vacancies, landlords don't and I don't want to say the word "luxury" but they can be more picking and choosing of who they have in their spaces. And one of the ways that they are determining this from what I hear is based at times on sexual orientation and not being of a binary gender. So to me this will this is a suicide prevention piece that's so important as well as a homeless prevention piece because these are people that are at higher risk and a greater degree of suicidal ideation. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried.
Carried
Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Department of Justice increase funding to the men's healing fund to support regional healing programs for the holistic health and wellbeing of men. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. To the motion. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, in the work that committee did, I'm sure people have noticed by now that not everything in this report is solely focused on housing. And a lot of this work we wanted to be preventative and wanted to go upstream. And so we can't have a motion that speaks to safe housing in regards to family violence without going upstream as well and ensuring that healing is also supported there and so that's what this really speaks to. And I look forward to seeing the government's response on this. I know that this has been an issue for both the 18th and 19th Assemblies. Thank you.
Thank you. To the motion. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, and I have to say that I struggle at times with the conversation around, you know, women's rights or things for families and women and children because we are moving away as a society from the traditional binary role or idea of there being only two genders or even people being gendered to begin with. And so it's I find sometimes that it allow it ends up being that we're so hyper focused on one group, we're kind of losing intent of that everybody needs help, and any support that's there for one person that might fit some demographic will also help another person, even if they're in a different demographic. And one of the things that really struck me is when I travelled at one point into Fort Simpson, I sat with a man at the learning centre who spoke to me about how he felt that he was no longer or not even no longer, sorry, that he felt that he wasn't supported and that in the conversation around women and everything that has come from the last few decades that the conversation around men then stalled. It became a very, like, polarized conversation. If we're going to promote women, then we're not doing this for men, but really we need to start talking about people and humans and everybody and not being focused on what they identify as or what it must be. So, yes, like my colleague said, if we're going to support people in our group, we have to support everybody. And the reason I think the men's heeling fund is so important is as society changes, we only have certain role models that we grew up with that show us how we're supposed to be in our relationships and as members of society. And with such a drastic change that we've seen in a while, a lot of people I think are generally lost about what they're supposed to be doing. The role model that was held up to them as being what they were supposed to aspire to be as children is we have now said as a society is not necessarily valid or not one that we want any further as women's issues advance. And as a result of that, I think men have become lost. And how do they become how do they show emotion. How do they show feeling when as children they were told that men don't cry, be a man, you know, be strong and stoic. And so I really feel that this is a piece that's key and critical because if we don't heal all of us, we're not going to be able to heal our society. So I strongly support this and hope that it is one that will be taken up by the government. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. To the motion. Member for Thebacha.
I'm going to make a short comment. In my previous role, I saw a lot of abuse that occurred to men also. And I think that this is a really important motion. It's there's also the reverse, okay. It's not only women that are abused within society in a home life. I saw both sides of the abuse that could happen, and sometimes it could be pretty, pretty awful. And so I really support this particular motion. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. The motion is in order. Member for Monfwi.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I like this motion too as well. It's a good motion. It's going to help men help each other, helping each other. It's not just men but there's other young men too as well who needs help and support, you know. So but the studies show that it's the girls and women that suffer the most. But I have heard we have heard many times from others as well that men do need help as well. We got to focus on men so that way if they get the help that they need, then, you know, their relationship with their loved ones might improve, which is true, you know. So I heard that statement many times too when I was on the Native Women's Association as well. And so I really do like this because there are a lot of young boys that are suffering too in silence, you know. And sometimes they don't know who to turn to for help because some of them are in single parent household, and they don't have a good role model. And these program like this, men's healing fund or men's healing support group is really beneficial, especially in small communities. It's like a big brother program but they work with each other. It's a group. So I really do like this. And it's good for the wellbeing and the health of our young boys, young men. So I really do support this. Thank you.
Thank you. To the motion. Member for Nunakput.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a brief yeah, it's really good to hear that if something like this gets through, we tend to just not to do anything for the men and our young men that do need help in our communities for support, and I'm really happy, thankful for the Members that brought this forward. And I am in full support. Thank you.
Thank you. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried.
Carried
Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories complete Truth and Reconciliation Call to Action No. 21 and secure substantive federal funding for Northwest Territories Indigenous healing centre to support Indigenous individuals who have been harmed and/or traumatized by the Indian Residential School system, Sixties Scoop, and other acts of colonization. Thank you, Madam Chair
Thank you. The motion is in order. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried.
Carried
Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Department of Health and Social Services expedite the application approval and reporting requirement process of the On the Land Healing Fund to uphold Indigenous governments and organizations selfdetermination and ensure allocation of annual funds. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The motion is in order. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried.
Carried
Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories take an allofgovernment approach to providing sustainable multiyear funding for emergency shelters, transitional housing with wraparound sobriety and mental health supports and supported living housing with managed alcohol and harm reduction programs. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Great Slave.
I'll keep it short. I just wanted to say that we have seen examples of these types of programs working, the women's society doing the Spruce Bough program, the YWCA. I'm so excited for their family centre to finally be open again, which will then replicate some of what was lost during the Rockhill fire, which really the model we want to see, is that people don't need to travel to get services; they can help each other out; there's supports and education pieces right in the building that they're living in. It's just wonderful, the things that they can do. And so I think, again, the multiyear piece is very important for that peace of mind for these NGOs that they can continue. I am aware that at times NGOs have not been on RFP or RFPs that have come out from the government because they're not sure that the rest of their programming is going to be sustainable or funded for the next year so they can't take the risk on taking on more work in the event that it doesn't that their current funding doesn't pan out again. So I can't say enough for how important this type of infrastructure is. Thank you.
Thank you. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried.
Carried
Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that Housing Northwest Territories work with Indigenous governments and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to establish an Indigenous housing fund that will provide Indigenous governments and/or Indigenous nongovernmental organizations financial support to purchase, operate, and manage housing aimed at Indigenous individuals and families. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. The motion is in order. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? Abstentions? The motion is carried.
Carried
Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories work with Indigenous governments, architects, engineers, and other professionals to develop a suite of Indigenousled climate change responsive designs for emergency shelters, transitional housing, affordable housing, housing for seniors, and housing for those with disabilities. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The motion is in order. To the motion. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. This one speaks to me clearly, reference to engineering. One of the things that was shown in the past was that as more women entered the field of engineering, design and such changed to then accommodate things that women thought of that were needed in areas that had not been before, and one of those is the examples is having a mirror in the driver's side panel that flips down. Before it was always on the passenger side with the assumptions that women were always the ones as passengers. And so as you have more people of a diverse nature being involved in different professions, you see those professions change and evolve and become more inclusive of society. You know, until I'm sure somebody with a disability came into an organization, people didn't really think about the fact that, you know, they couldn't walk up those stairs or that curb was prohibitive. And I think the same thing is here. And as an engineer who operated not in the building sciences but in the North, you know, it never occurred to me things like that there was a need for a utilitiesstyle room in which to dry food, to make dry meat, things like that. I would never know that coming into a and most of my colleagues would not either. And so I think there's a real unique opportunity here for people to, you know, really do some creative and innovative design. And all it really takes, I think because engineers, we're nerds. We like to do things neat and fun and cool and we're very open to listening to a lot of different things and inputs because that's how we optimize our designs and our projects. So to me this is really cool because I think we could end up having these really innovativetype communities where, you know, even the circle and having the communal centre in the middle and then having smaller you know, the houses around, having that utility room. Even something such as some of the cooking that's done by Indigenous people, as my colleague explained, produces more condensation inside the apartment because there's a lot more of boiling and things going on and such. And I don't think that's something that your average southern, you know, nonIndigenous engineer, architect or whatever, is going to think of when it comes time to buildings. So I think this is such a neat thing and a really great way that, you know to ensure that the money and projects that we are spending and developing will then actually work for our people and stop imposing sort of these southern ideas on it. So I'm excited for this one, and I really support it. Thank you.
Thank you. To the motion. Member for Kam Lake.
Question.
