Statements in Debates

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 19)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's all I had at this point in time. Mahsi.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 19)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm glad to see that the -- there's an increase of 6 percent. Hopefully it's going into the right programs, being as efficient as it could be. And when we hear a lot of the news on lack of nurses, so we got to rely on agency nurses, and we hear the ongoing delivery problems with medical travel, pre-assessments, so when I hear that and I look at the business plan and the supported financial documents to that plan and I look at the list of programs and -- or health and social programs that this department's offering and services and so on, so taking a real wholistic...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 19)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm glad to see that this department is taking an active role as identified in the business plan to address our drug trade issues. And I'm also glad that some other responsibilities are with the Minister and the Premier so when they're making trips to Ottawa to solicit for more money, I think we can all -- we can encourage our leader to emphasize the need for additional policing resources. And then when we get to the -- when we get to the fact of homelessness, now we've got the Minister and the Premier responsible for that department also or that initiative. So it works...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 19)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I kind of view this OROGO office as a continued allied services to the industry community. And I'm going to say this is probably a real good rate of return on this expense there, Mr. Chair, because our revenues or the royalties received by this industry, I think it's -- I don't have the numbers in front of me, but it's into the millions. So if you're spending $1.2 million, and you're getting back royalties in the neighbourhood of two or three or four, wouldn't you think that would be a good expense on regulatory responsibilities with this area? There's much that this...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 19)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It seems, you know, from past experiences there, we -- where there's a lost opportunity, another one's created. So we have an emerging willingness for rehabilitation. So there's going to be staff opportunities for the emerging counselling for drugs, as we discussed here the last number of days, more specifically yesterday, on the increased activity of the drug trade. So to minimize that demand through counsellors and those types of positions would the 30 position PY, in this case, you got 17 -- 15 and 17 PYs here. Is there some -- I don't know, maybe some of the staff...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 19)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is in this corrections chapter is the closure of the Fort Smith Corrections Centre. It seems to me that -- I've read that we're going to take -- we're going to close the centre and we're going to have approximately 30 people -- or 30 staff members, plus part-time staff, basically laid off. Could the Minister provide a little bit more information on other options; is this really the only option? It seems like such a hard blow to our community and the clients within the corrections centre. I just don't have enough detail whether that's the best option or not...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 19)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My third question, does the Minister have a timeline for when the regulations for the Public Lands Act will be completed? Mahsi.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 19)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Following up on my questions -- or my statement on the Public Lands Act, my first question to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Can the Minister of ECC provide the House with an update on the status of the development of the regulations for the Public Lands Act? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 19)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. When I look at the programs and the funding and the grants coming in there, it sort of encourages me to say here's solutions. As I mentioned several times here, I'm quite -- I would say quite proud about the actions taken by leadership to address the drug issue that we're experiencing right across the territory. But in our area, the leaders are grasping the problems and taking a hold of it and doing some planning and having some consultations. And this coming after the weekend, they're going to listen from the youth. So the youth is going to raise their list of...

Debates of , 20th Assembly, 1st Session (day 19)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, it was more of a suggestion on how to improve our management system. The management system is really the governing organization of this department, and if we have collectively identified various weaknesses how do we fix that. So it was just a suggestion. We do have a co-management structure in place called our territorial wellness and regional wellness councils. So I've been telling some leaders back at the Sahtu, we have this joint venture, or whatever you want to call it -- in this case co-management system -- to deliver and improve our services because our people...