Thank you, Mr. Speaker. May I dare say that occasionally Members on this side of the House have a really good idea, and there are many small things in our communities that this government could fund, which would make a huge difference, but we can’t be told no, we have no money, and if you do want that money, find out where you can cut something. We do not have the resources at our disposal to identify where those funds are.
Let me just give you a couple of examples. In Hay River, recently in just talking with people, the youth centre needs a piece of land, the youth treatment in a seed group that wants it going, we have people who just need shelter at nights in existing accommodation, we have a soup kitchen that needs a container to store the extra stuff donated to them. These are small things, but these harness the passion and volunteerism of people in the community that make a huge difference. The Persons with Disabilities Council was just told in Hay River no, you can’t have an increase from your $33,000 a year because we don’t have any money. So you go out and fundraise harder. You know, this is a difficult message to deliver for us.
Could I ask the Premier is there any possibility that he could go to his deputies and go to his Ministers and go to his departments and say could they identify some place, some savings within the departments that are low impact, that are not going to upset the progress of government that could come up with some kind of fund that would allow us to take some wins back to our communities on behalf of our constituents for some low budget stuff? I’m talking about things under $50,000 that in smaller communities would have a huge impact, but we don’t have access to anything like that. I’m not asking to sit around with a multi-million dollar capital budget and we’re going to divvy it up from this side of the House. I’m talking about some small wins or some small things for some communities and regions outside of Yellowknife. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Groenewegen. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We would welcome the opportunity to do so. We have a number of processes that we can use to do that and we also have the business planning processes and we always welcome all the good ideas from the other side of the House. We’re quite prepared to look for those pots of money, but we obviously would need the support from the other side of the House as well. Thank you.
I’d like to thank the Premier for that response. I’ve obviously been a part of some previous governments and I can remember sometimes when we were going through cost-saving exercises as a government and we went to the bureaucracy and said, you know, what could we cut to save some money and the list they sent back to us was so unpalatable. I mean, they would go, oh well, we would never do it. So maybe it’s not actual cutting, maybe it’s reductions in certain areas where we can find some money, as the government always says, from within to come up with a program. I think it would send a very positive and clear message to the people out there that are trying to undertake good on behalf of our constituents if we could do something like that.
So is the Premier prepared to have a discussion, with our support, with the senior management at the deputy minister level in the departments to find some savings? Like I said, not to change the course of government but find some savings from within that could allow us to access some funds for some initiatives in our communities. Thank you.
Over the years we have made a number of attempts of doing so. I think in the last government we looked to find ways to find funding that we could use to fund strategic initiatives and I think I understand what the Member is talking about, I think on a much smaller scale, to look at specific funds that we could use to meet some immediate needs and I think that we have a number of processes that would allow us to do so. I think it’s just a matter of us getting together, talking about it so that we can give some specific direction to our senior management, so that we can find ways to identify funds, for example, for disabilities and other projects or programs that the Member has outlined. Thank you.
Again, I think that the people of the Northwest Territories will take heart with that response that the Premier just provided. I don’t condone or support our government throwing money out there, either, kind of willy nilly and hope it hits the right place. So I think that we would need to have a process whereby we could make a case, we could get the support of our colleagues, we could make a case, we could make the pitch and the onus would be on us to a large extent to show that there’s continuity and there should be accountability structures. So how soon do you think we could have this discussion? Thank you.
I would think that we could come up with some sort of a framework that we could have a discussion with committee. For example, I think we have $350,000 in it and every time we call for applications it’s oversubscribed by $1 million or so. So I think that if we put our minds to it we could come out with a process and also look at how it would be tied into our existing planning processes, because we are talking about public funds. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I think the Premier’s suggestion of perhaps enhancing the NGO Stabilization Fund may be the perfect vehicle for which to do this, because these are small things I’m talking about, but they make a huge difference in supporting the efforts within our communities. So I would just like to close by thanking the Premier very much for his response to this request. Thank you.
I welcome comments and they do give good ideas on the other side. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
