Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to use this occasion to refer back to my Member’s statement today when I talk about the downtown day centre. It is important that I continue to emphasize this. This is more like a territorial shelter that offers no programming as of yet, that I hope will happen, but it offers opportunity for people from around the North a place to go, who are homeless.
As I highlighted in my comments, there have been some stats taken that about a third of the daily users actually only identify themselves as Yellowknifers and it is the rest, actually, that sort of draws some strange attention to the problem.
I would like the Minister maybe to talk about what he plans to do in the upcoming budget and fiscal year to help support this downtown day shelter. Will his department be financially committed to continuing the operation of a downtown day shelter? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Health and Social Services, through the YK Health and Social Services Authority, is contributing their $125,000, plus are now contributing the share that used to be contributed in a three-year pilot project by BHP for $50,000, for a total of $175,000. That money will run to the end of the 2012-13 fiscal year, at which point we will re-examine our position. Thank you.
I want to acknowledge how, with great delicacy, the Minister avoided, really, the question.
Is the department going to fund the downtown day shelter in the next fiscal year? We already well know, in this room and on the street, that the day shelter is being funded by the Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority up until March 31st of next year. We already know that. Tell us something we don’t know.
Will this new funding, if available, which I am waiting to be confirmed by the Minister here today, include programming funding so we can provide people with services more than just doors open?
Mr. Speaker, I don’t know if we are going to be funding it beyond March 2013, because this was originally a three-year pilot. All the partners were in for three years. Now we are alone. We are continuing to fund it. We have funded it for one more year. It has its opposition; there is no question about it.
We want to evaluate what is there. We want to see if there are programs that we are putting in there now such as a navigator type of service to help individuals to pursue employment, education opportunities. I am going to see if those things actually have an impact.
We are going to run this year out, this fiscal year up until March 31, 2013. We will take a look at those impacts and then make a decision on whether or not we will continue to fund the shelter. Thank you.
Clearly, that is not the answer I am looking for per se, but at least finally we have an answer.
There is no plan to fund it beyond this coming end of fiscal year. If that is what the Minister is truly saying, then we should make sure we are clear.
I want to know today that the people going to this centre, that the businesses depending on this particular centre to provide homeless people opportunities and places to go, we need to be clear to the public that we are going to pull out from the process. Is the Minister saying clearly today that there is no funding in the upcoming budget for this centre? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, like I indicated, we will fund it for the rest of this fiscal year. That still gives us an opportunity to evaluate and get some funding into the shelter, if that is the decision we make beyond March 31, 2013.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t think the Minister is clear on his answer one way or the other. It is a yes or no question. Are we going to fund it into the following fiscal year? Yes or no. Why do we keep talking about we are funding it to the end of this fiscal year? Why do you keep telling me that? We already know that. Everybody in the public knows. I want to know and the public wants to know, yes or no.
Is the government going to get behind this project and fund it starting in the next fiscal year that starts April 1, 2013? Yes or no. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. Maybe yes, maybe no.
---Laughter
Order! If I can remind the Members, people are watching in their communities expecting us to do our job. Make your questions short, to the point and the same thing with the Ministers. You’re Ministers. Answer with all the respect as possible to the Members. Thank you.
The Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
