Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the NGOs in the Northwest Territories. According to my information, there are 472 in the Northwest Territories. We spend about $20 million on NGOs and certainly these NGOs do a lot of hard work and there’s a number of NGOs around the Northwest Territories. As a matter of fact, I mentioned that there are 219 in Yellowknife and there’s nothing in the Sahtu. I wanted to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services how she can help the Sahtu communities, the health boards, the communities or the bands to establish NGO programs and how can we get those kind of programs such as family support or emergency shelters for women or children.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The NGOs are just one form of organizing a group of people together with like-minded philosophies and goals and desires to advance the causes that they work for, whether they be environment or women’s issues or family violence issues or a whole number of areas that NGOs are involved in.
In terms of being able to access program funding or tap into government programs, this government considers applications from groups other than NGOs, because we are very well aware of the fact that small communities don’t necessarily have these NGOs. So we often work with local societies or band councils or municipal governments or regional corporations. In that regard we give as much consideration to groups that are not NGOs from communities.
The Minister indicated there are other sources that can be tapped into of NGO-type of funding by the band councils or regional corporations. I want to ask, I know there was a request by the band council of Tulita for emergency shelters to the Minister, but we just couldn’t get $10,000 for the community and now we have to wait again for another fiscal year. These type of situations that we run into we have to get our foot into the door with NGOs. I asked the Minister about working with the health boards in the communities to establish strong NGO support in our communities where we can get the type of services that we get in other regions to help our people.
That is a good example. I need to state clearly that the reason that application was not able to be approved was not because it was not coming from an NGO but because the funding for that specific fiscal year had been fully subscribed. We are considering that application for the next fiscal year, which is coming up on April 1st.
I can also advise the Member that we have had applications from other communities like Fort Resolution and we worked with people interested in accessing that funding to find a sponsor in that community who could apply for funding. We are totally able and we will work with the community to make sure they can find a suitable body. The band council is fine, and municipal governments as well, to have that application considered. We will be considering that for the next fiscal year.
I ask the Minister to also consider the complexities of NGOs when they have to request for funding, administer the funding and report the funding. One instance in the Sahtu where the band was running the drug and alcohol programs, there was so many complexities and the band did not have much support so they gave the money over to the GNWT and things changed in the funding and support and benefits. Would the Minister look at how to work with the small communities to have simpler programs to report and administer while staying within the guidelines to abide by the funding criteria for NGOs?
Yes, absolutely, and we do that already. I believe when we were in Tulita, the Member and myself, the grand chief in fact recognized us for having streamlined the funding proposal process and they were able to access funding. On a daily basis our staff does work with band councils or municipal governments to help them with the application process so they can access the funding that we offer.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do thank the Member for the reference of my home community of Tulita. I also represent four other communities in the Sahtu where there is certainly much need for these types of programs. For example, the family support centre in Hay River receives $430,000 to reduce the incidence of family violence. The Alison McAteer House receives $600,000 for their programs. The NWT Council for the Disabled receives $300,000. We want to look at those types of dollars for the Sahtu in order to coordinate these types of dollars for families in the communities to help with the goals and the safety of our communities. How do we do this type of work? That’s what I’m asking for all the communities in the Sahtu.
On that specific file the government has recognized that there are only a few shelters that are funded in a specific way. We recognize there are other communities without shelters that need outreach and support. Not everybody wants to be able to or wishes to take advantage of a shelter, but we have people in the communities who need the support on family violence issues. We have put in money to do the outreach work. I’m not sure where we are with that money for the Sahtu region, but I will make a commitment to get back to the Member as to how we are reaching the communities on that.
Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
