Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today we are talking about the NGO Stabilization Fund that was established back in the 16th Assembly to help out the organizations that are doing a lot of good work in the Northwest Territories, and it’s not easy to make ends meet for these organizations. A lot of people welcomed the NGO Stabilization Fund when it was first established, but in our small communities, and especially for our elders, it has been a disappointment. Elders in Yellowknife are very fortunate to have Aven Manor and all the programs that go with it. I know our elders in the Sahtu would really appreciate having programs like that.
In our smaller communities, we do not have these facilities, the organizations, the corporate donors or enough volunteers to make programs like what Yellowknife has had, without a lot of government support and funding. How are we supposed to get started?
The NGO fund only helps NGOs that are already there. It doesn’t help any new NGOs to get going, even if your organization is registered properly. Small communities without NGOs are out of luck. The government stands back and waits for applications to come in, knowing that most of them come from Yellowknife. There’s about 350-some-odd NGOs in Yellowknife, only 33 in the Sahtu where there’s lots of NGOs that are not easily paired off in terms of the ratio number. That’s not good enough.
Our elders in the smaller communities deserve better. I would like to see this government either change the NGO Stabilization Fund or come up with new funding that would also allow small communities like Colville Lake and Tulita to start some programming for elders.
Our elders are precious to us and we want to give them the best quality of life and keep them in our communities as long as possible. We need the government to work with us to make that happen, not hide behind the complicated funding policies that hardly anybody or no one understands.
I’ll have questions for the Minister at the appropriate time. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
