I’d like to follow up on the statements about the voluntary sector that have been made by my colleagues. I was really pleased to hear the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs state that we need to take action to ensure that the volunteer sector stays strong. I’d like to ask the Minister: other than the N.W.T. Outstanding Volunteer Awards, what is MACA doing to strengthen the volunteer sector?
Mr. Speaker, we do a lot of work in the area of volunteering and volunteerism. Historically, we have worked very closely with Volunteer NWT. The decision of the federal government to pull the financing has made it very difficult for that organization. They are looking at ways to acquire some support and have had contact with us.
We have had a lot of discussion around that issue, looking at ways to maybe find outside sources or within our own government to help them. But we do, as the Member indicated, provide the volunteer awards program. We also provide through our department the Fire Service Merit Awards. Everybody knows that the firefighters in our communities are one of our key community resources. We also provide training for some of our volunteer organizations and fund some of the training opportunities for the staff. We’ve been lobbying Statistics Canada to have the N.W.T. included in the national surveys on volunteering. As I indicated earlier, we have provided some funding to Volunteer NWT. to develop their resources to promote volunteering. We’ve had workshops on volunteering in a lot of communities, and we’ve done a lot of research into funding opportunities, so there’s quite a bit.
We also work closely with other departments, FMBS. We’ve developed a guide for the program managers within government to further clarify the funding policies for NGOs and other volunteer organizations. And of course, one of our more popular programs is the Youth Ambassador Program for major games. It’s been quite a success with Canada Winter Games, and hopefully we’re going to see the same results with the Arctic Winter Games.
We also, for the last two years, have been bringing our sports volunteers to be recognized and attend the Chances for Children events, Mr. Speaker. We also have an ongoing communication, as I indicated, with Volunteer NWT.
I thank the Minister for that summary. I don’t mean to lessen the value of any of the things the Minister mentioned, but I don’t believe that those are working towards strengthening the sector; I think those are maintaining the sector. I’d like to know whether there are any specific actions the Minister is considering relative to the voluntary sector to help strengthen it.
I think the Member and all Members are aware we’re going under review at this time to see where we can place emphasis on new investments, new initiatives, and also going through analysis of where things can be reduced. It would be difficult for me to say at this point, until those processes are done, whether or not we’d be able to be in a position to put more investments into this area of volunteerism.
The time for question period has expired. I’ll allow the Member a supplementary question.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As has been mentioned previously, the voluntary sector goes beyond the purview of Municipal and Community Affairs. It involves people in the health area; it involves people in the justice area; it involves people that cover all departments within our government. I would like to ask the Minister if he would give me an opinion, in his role as Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, if he doesn’t believe that the centralization of the point of contact for the voluntary sector would be a benefit to that sector in them moving forward and accomplishing more for our volunteers.
The Member is asking for my opinion; I’d be glad to share it. In my opinion, anything that would enhance the issue of encouraging volunteerism or providing support to volunteerism, I would be in support of.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to seek unanimous consent to go back to item 7, oral questions.
The Member is seeking unanimous consent to return to item 7 on the Order Paper, oral questions.
Unanimous consent granted.
We will return to oral questions, item 7 on the Order Paper. Mr. Abernethy.
