Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Early on in this government, Members of the Assembly had a pretty good debate on an issue in terms of infrastructure. This government funded a non-government organization a certain amount of money to help with the construction of that building, and actually that building that was developed is actually working in the sense that it’s one of the focuses of our priorities, which is early childhood development. Obviously, that didn’t go well with some Members, but it was a really good debate, and at the end of the day, this government put forward money so an NGO could build their infrastructure.
However, Members did agree on that with one fact in mind: that this government go out and create a policy that states that this government will look at supporting non-government organizations in the building of their infrastructure plans on the fact that we do create a policy. Initially it was a policy that was supposed to be developed only for daycares, early childhood facilities. Committee came back and said we want to focus it on a broader structure moving forward for all NGOs.
There are a lot of non-government organizations that do a lot of great work in the Northwest Territories. We heard earlier this week about some of the job situations in the communities. We have a great organization here in Yellowknife, the NWT SPCA that could use some funding to increase their infrastructure so that they can house more pets and animals. We have shelters that do work on behalf of government by housing the homeless and housing people that might be battling addictions.
I will have questions later today on where the development of this policy is. There are a lot of organizations that continue to struggle in the Northwest Territories but continue to do topnotch work that government should be doing. We want to support these organizations, whether it’s with infrastructure, whether it’s forced growth funding that they don’t see but our departments see. We do spend millions of dollars on forced growth within our departments, but a lot of organizations continue to operate on the same dollar that they always have.
I will have questions later today about an update on this policy. Where is this policy, and if there is no policy, what is the process for an NGO to come to government to ask for that top-up and that support?
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
